Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 9.1
(
a
) and (
b
) Two leading theories and cancer stem cell models: (
a
) Clonal evolution and
(
b
) Cancer stem cell/Hierarchical model
Fig. 9.2
Concept of cancer stem cell targeted therapy
Unlike cancer cells in a tumor, CSCs are capable of establishing new tumors
when xenotransplanted into NOD/SCID animal models [
5
]. Although it has been
shown that cancer cells are able to proliferate at a faster rate than CSCs, they have
slight tumor initiating potential.
Therapeutic strategies that focus on targeting CSC markers will help address the
ineffectiveness of traditional cancer therapies, which would otherwise result in ther-
apy resistance and relapse (Fig.
9.2
; Table
9.1
).
