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Review : “To Be or Not to Be…” Cancer Stem Cells or Not Cancer Stem Cells..
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Bianca Ho, Laura Rosenthal, and Zafira Castaño
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Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
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Hematology Division, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, AND Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115, USA
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zcastano-corsino@partners.org
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Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are defined as cancer cells with self-renewal capacity. These cells represent a small subpopulation endowed with the ability to form new tumors when injected in mice. Membrane markers and cancer stem cell assays have been used to identify and characterize these cells. The self-renewal ability of cancer stem cells has suggested that this population could be responsible for new tumor formation and cancer relapse. The identification of the cells responsible for the initiation and maintenance of a tumor is a main goal of research as such identification would present opportunities to design more specific therapies. In this article we will critically review these points with emphasis on the assays that the scientific community has in its arsenal to characterize and identify breast cancer stem cells, exposing the divergent literature.
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