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Umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells and breast cancer: a good therapeutic candidate or not? A minireview

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Abstract

Breast cancer (BC), as the most common cancer among women, affects a great number of subjects around the world. This heterogenic disease is divided into several types and subtypes, and each subtype has various phenotypes and genotypes. Against BC, several options have been proposed, such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapeutic agents. However, these approaches may have detrimental effects on health and life quality of patients. Hence, harnessing a therapeutic tool with high effectiveness and low side effects is required. Recently, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have created a new window to treat various disorders, like cancer, and among these, umbilical cord (UC)-derived MSCs have acquired much interest due to their advantages. Therefore, in this narrative review, the influences of UC-derived MSCs on BC were reviewed and summarized with a focus on the molecular mechanisms involved in its pathogenesis and treatment.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this article. Further enquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The figures were created by the web-based software BioRender.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Arak University, Arak, Iran

    Anahita Tavakoli

  2. Department of surgery, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Alborz, Iran

    Mohammad Saeed Kahrizi

  3. Department of Laboratory Sciences, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences (HUMS), Bandar Abbas, Iran

    Kimia Safa

  4. Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, 7345149573, Shiraz, Iran

    Reza ArefNezhad

  5. Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Fas University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran

    Fatemeh Rezaei-Tazangi

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  1. Anahita Tavakoli
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  2. Mohammad Saeed Kahrizi
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  4. Reza ArefNezhad
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Contributions

Anahita Tavakoli, Mohammad Saeed Kahrizi and Kimia Safa contributed to the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work. Reza ArefNezhad and Fatemeh Rezaei-Tazangi contributed to the write-up of the review article.

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Correspondence to Reza ArefNezhad.

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Tavakoli, A., Kahrizi, M.S., Safa, K. et al. Umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells and breast cancer: a good therapeutic candidate or not? A minireview. Mol Biol Rep 49, 9017–9022 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-022-07739-w

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