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Emerging strategies for the identification and targeting of cancer stem cells

  • Research Article
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Tumor Biology

Abstract

The hypothesis of cancer stem cells (CSCs) is receiving increasing interest and has become the subject of considerable debate among cancer researchers. Recent rapid progress in CSC research has encountered increasing difficulties and challenges. Understanding the biologic characteristic of CSCs is crucial to start with better identification and diagnosis based on CSC markers and eventually targeting to CSCs will undoubtedly result in improved prevention and treatment of many types of CSCs. We discuss here some of the approaching strategies that include establishing special methods of identifying CSCs and targeting therapies of CSCs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science Foundation of Southeast University (No. 9223001446), in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 90406023), and in part by the 973 Program of China (No.2006CB933206). We also thank Dr. Lin Wang in Atlanta, GA, USA for kindly editing the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Pathogenic Biology and Immunology, School of Basic Medical Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210009, China

    Jun Dou

  2. School of Biological Science & Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China

    Ning Gu

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Dou, J., Gu, N. Emerging strategies for the identification and targeting of cancer stem cells. Tumor Biol. 31, 243–253 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-010-0023-y

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