title: Claudins and cancer stem cells.
abstract: It is now believed that most epithelial tumors are maintained by a subpopulation of cells called cancer stem cells (CSCs) or tumor initiating cells (TICs) with stem cell-like properties, including self-renewal and multilineage differentiation capacity. Recently new insights into this population have emerged in certain epithelial tumor types, including their Claudin(low) phenotype and its importance to the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process. Taken together, CSCs, EMT and Claudins appear to constitute an axis-of-evil in cancer, for which better understanding may lead to new therapeutic platforms.
authors.affiliation: Regenerative Medicine Program, Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, 501 Smyth Road-CCW5226, Ottawa, ON K1Y 8L6, Canada. kturksen@ohri.ca
authors.forename: Kursad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Turksen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D057167:Claudins / Q000378:metabolism*; D058750:Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D010641:Phenotype; D019108:Tight Junctions / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D057167:Claudins