Advances in Cancer Stem Cell Biology

In recent years, cancer stem cells have been recognized as important component in carcinogenesis and they seem to form the basis of many (if not all) tumor types. Cancer stem cells or 'cancer cell like stem cells' have been isolated from various cancers of different origin (blood, breast, brain, skin, head and neck, thyroid, cervix, lung, retina, colon, pancreas and so on). Cancer stem cells - rare cells with indefinite proliferative potential that drive the formation and growth of tumours- seem to show intriguing relationships with physiological stem cells. Specifically, these cancer cells show significant similarities in the mechanisms that regulate self-renewal of normal stem cells. Moreover, tumour cells might directly arise from normal stem cells. Further, the cellular biology of cancer stem cells show a lot of similarities with normal stem cells.