Development of novel strategies to overcome therapeutic resistant cancers

Abstract

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are the cells that are the origin and play a central role in maintenance of cancer tissue. Clinically, the most important feature of CSCs is that they are resistant to various treatments and consequently lead to recurrence and metastasis. However, the therapeutic resistant mechanism of CSCs is diverse and depend on the cell of origin and their microenvironment. CSCs are thought to be established by two mechanisms; somatic stem cells change to CSCs by a driver gene mutation (stem cell origin type), and progenitor cells change to CSCs under the background of chronic inflammation (progenitor cell origin type). We have clarified that the differentiation control mechanism, the reactive oxygen species suppression and cell death suppression mechanism are involved in therapeutic resistance of CSCs. In this talk, I would like to explain these mechanisms elucidated by basic research data and propose new treatment strategies based on drug repositioning.