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Review
. 2018 Dec 13;19(12):4036.
doi: 10.3390/ijms19124036.

Targeting Cancer Stem Cells to Overcome Chemoresistance

Toni Nunes  1   2 , Diaddin Hamdan  3   4 , Christophe Leboeuf  5   6 , Morad El Bouchtaoui  7   8 , Guillaume Gapihan  9   10 , Thi Thuy Nguyen  11 , Solveig Meles  12 , Eurydice Angeli  13 , Philippe Ratajczak  14   15 , He Lu  16   17 , Mélanie Di Benedetto  18   19   20 , Guilhem Bousquet  21   22   23   24 , Anne Janin  25   26   27
Affiliations
Review

Targeting Cancer Stem Cells to Overcome Chemoresistance

Toni Nunes et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Cancers are heterogeneous at the cell level, and the mechanisms leading to cancer heterogeneity could be clonal evolution or cancer stem cells. Cancer stem cells are resistant to most anti-cancer treatments and could be preferential targets to reverse this resistance, either targeting stemness pathways or cancer stem cell surface markers. Gold nanoparticles have emerged as innovative tools, particularly for photo-thermal therapy since they can be excited by laser to induce hyperthermia. Gold nanoparticles can be functionalized with antibodies to specifically target cancer stem cells. Preclinical studies using photo-thermal therapy have demonstrated the feasibility of targeting chemo-resistant cancer cells to reverse clinical chemoresistance. Here, we review the data linking cancer stem cells and chemoresistance and discuss the way to target them to reverse resistance. We particularly focus on the use of functionalized gold nanoparticles in the treatment of chemo-resistant metastatic cancers.

Keywords: cancer; cancer stem cell; chemoresistance; functionalization; gold nanoparticles; photo-thermal therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Tumor response to conventional treatment is hampered by resistant cancer stem cells that can regenerate the tumor bulk. (b) Hybrid iron-gold nanoparticle conjugated with an anti-HER2 antibody and targeted against cancer stem cell marker CXCR4 for theranostic purposes; Photothermal irradiation destroys cancer stem cells and, thus, prevents tumor relapse following chemotherapy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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