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Updated: Aug 12, 2025

Studying Pancreatic Cancer Stem Cell Characteristics for Developing New Treatment Strategies
Published on: June 20, 2015
Cancer stem cells: Recent insights and therapies
Hongyu Zhou1, Licheng Tan1, Beilei Liu2
1Department of Clinical Oncology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
None:
Tumors are intricate ecosystems containing malignant components that generate adaptive and evolutionarily driven abnormal tissues. Through self-renewal and differentiation, cancers are reconstructed by a dynamic subset of stem-like cells that enforce tumor heterogeneity and remodel the tumor microenvironment (TME). Through recent technology advances, we are now better equipped to investigate the fundamental role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in cancer biology. In this review, we discuss the latest insights into characteristics, markers and mechanism of CSCs and describe the crosstalk between CSCs and other cells in TME. Additionally, we explore the performance of single-cell sequencing and spatial transcriptome analysis in CSCs studies and summarize the therapeutic strategies to eliminate CSCs, which could broaden the understanding of CSCs and exploit for therapeutic benefit.
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