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Review
. 2018 Jun 21;15(4):365-380.
doi: 10.1007/s13770-018-0128-8. eCollection 2018 Aug.

The Use of Normal Stem Cells and Cancer Stem Cells for Potential Anti-Cancer Therapeutic Strategy

Seung-Woo Han #  1 , Yoon Young Kim #  2 , Woo-Ju Kang  1 , Hyoung-Chin Kim #  3 , Seung-Yup Ku  2 , Byeong-Cheol Kang  4   5   6   7 , Jun-Won Yun  1
Affiliations
Review

The Use of Normal Stem Cells and Cancer Stem Cells for Potential Anti-Cancer Therapeutic Strategy

Seung-Woo Han et al. Tissue Eng Regen Med. .

Abstract

Background: Despite recent advance in conventional cancer therapies including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy to reduce tumor size, unfortunately cancer mortality and metastatic cancer incidence remain high. Along with a deeper understanding of stem cell biology, cancer stem cell (CSC) is important in targeted cancer therapy. Herein, we review representative patents using not only normal stem cells as therapeutics themselves or delivery vehicles, but also CSCs as targets for anti-cancer strategy.

Methods: Relevant patent literatures published between 2005 and 2017 are discussed to present developmental status and experimental results on using normal stem cells and CSCs for cancer therapy and explore potential future directions in this field.

Results: Stem cells have been considered as important element of regenerative therapy by promoting tissue regeneration. Particularly, there is a growing trend to use stem cells as a target drug-delivery system to reduce undesirable side effects in non-target tissues. Noteworthy, studies on CSC-specific markers for distinguishing CSCs from normal stem cells and mature cancer cells have been conducted as a selective anti-cancer therapy with few side effects. Many researchers have also reported the development of various substances with anticancer effects by targeting CSCs from cancer tissues.

Conclusion: There has been a continuing increase in the number of studies on therapeutic stem cells and CSC-specific markers for selective diagnosis and therapy of cancer. This review focuses on the current status in the use of normal stem cells and CSCs for targeted cancer therapy. Future direction is also proposed.

Keywords: Cancer; Cancer stem cell; Marker; Stem cell; Targeted cancer therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.There are no animal experiments carried out for this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Use of normal stem cells as delivery vehicles for anti-cancer therapeutic agents
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Development of new anti-cancer strategy targeting of cancer stem cells (CSCs)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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