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Cancer Stem Cells

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Figure X.  Stem cells usually divide asymmetrically as shown in (A).However, during times of physical stress both asymmetric and symmetric types of division as shown in (B).

 

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Figure XX. 

  1. Conventional Cancer therapies kill the bulk of the tumor but spare the cancer stem cell (CSC), the source of the tumor. Consequently, there is often a recurrence of the disease.
  2. Targeting CSCs along with therapeutic treatment will prevent the growth of these cells and should result in disease remission.

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Figure XXX. 

  1. Normal somatic stem cells are formed from embryonic precursors during fetal development. These fetal stem cells are able to self-renew and may give rise to adult stem cells often with different properties. The adult stem cells have the ability to self-renew and can also undergo differentiation to maintain adult tissues.
  2. CSC may arise from mutational transformation of normal stem cells or when mutations cause restricted progenitor/differentiated cells to acquire properties of CSCs, and become a pre-malignant cell. Once these pre-malignant cells undergo clonal evolution, they are able to generate additional CSCs through the process of self-renewal, as well as form benign cancer cells.