title: Breast cancer stem cells: current advances and clinical implications.
abstract: There is substantial evidence that many cancers, including breast cancer, are driven by a population of cells that display stem cell properties. These cells, termed cancer stem cells (CSCs) or tumor initiating cells, not only drive tumor initiation and growth but also mediate tumor metastasis and therapeutic resistance. In this chapter, we summarize current advances in CSC research with a major focus on breast CSCs (BCSCs). We review the prevailing methods to isolate and characterize BCSCs and recent evidence documenting their cellular origins and phenotypic plasticity that enables them to transition between mesenchymal and epithelial-like states. We describe in vitro and clinical evidence that these cells mediate metastasis and treatment resistance in breast cancer, the development of novel strategies to isolate circulating tumor cells (CTCs) that contain CSCs and the use of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models in preclinical breast cancer research. Lastly, we highlight several signaling pathways that regulate BCSC self-renewal and describe clinical implications of targeting these cells for breast cancer treatment. The development of strategies to effectively target BCSCs has the potential to significantly improve the outcomes for patients with breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, 2800 Plymouth Rd, 026 NCRC 335S, Ann Arbor, MI, 49108, USA.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Shawn G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Clouthier
authors.forename: Yadwinder
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Deol
authors.forename: Suling
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Sunitha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nagrath
authors.forename: Ebrahim
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Azizi
authors.forename: Max S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Wicha
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy; D000066673:Cell Self Renewal; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D010641:Phenotype; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers