Recent Research and Development in Stem Cell Therapy for Cancer Treatment: Promising Future and Challenges

Recent Research and Development in Stem Cell Therapy for Cancer Treatment: Promising Future and Challenges

Nagendra Kumar Chandrawanshi, Shekhar Verma
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6530-8.ch018
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Abstract

Cancer is the most prevalent and dangerous disease, and it leads to millions of deaths worldwide. Generally, metastatic cancer cells are not eradication by conventional surgical operative or chemotherapy-based treatment. New pathways have been established in various arenas such as unique biology, modulators regulatory mechanism, directional migration, self-renewal, etc. The individual pathways can be employed as therapeutic carriers, specific drug targeting, generation of acquiring nature immune cells, and regenerative medicine. The present scenario, stem cell therapy, focused on a promising tool for targeted cancer treatment. Stem cells also utilized as viruses and nanoparticles carry to enhance the primary therapeutic application in various dimensions such as cancer target therapy, regenerative medicine, immune-modulating therapy, and anticancer drugs screening. Furthermore, the rapid development in next-generation sequencing techniques and cancer genomics and proteomics analysis approaches are making therapeutics targeting organ-specific cancer more precise and efficient.
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Properties And Sources Of Stem Cells

1. Normal Stem Cells

The stem cells in different tissues share two common properties, the ability to self-renew, for example, to divide and form at least one new stem cell, as well as to differentiate into the mature cells of the organ in which it resides (Zhang et al., 2017). Although some studies suggested that plasticity allowed stem cells from different tissues such as the brain or blood system to trans differentiate and form mature cells of many different tissues, it is now clear that such plasticity is frequently the result of a rare fusion of the stem cell or its progeny with a cell of another organ (Wang et al., 2003). The ability of stem cells to expand in number is under tight genetic constraints. This is not surprising since unlimited stem cell expansion, coupled with the ability of the stem cells to enter the circulation (essentially metastasize), would result in a cell with a phenotype similar to that of a cancer cell. All that would be lacking would be the property of tissue invasion (Al-Hajj and Clarke, 2004). Recent evidence has demonstrated that cancers can be viewed as an abnormal organ in which tumour growth is driven by a population of cancer stem cells (CSCs), which can give rise to both more CSCs as well as non-tumorigenic cancer cells. In marked contrast to the CSCs, these latter cells have either no or a markedly diminished capacity to form new tumours (Singh et al., 2003). This observation has implications for the biology of tumour formation as well as the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. To treat cancer effectively, the CSCs must be eliminated. Otherwise, the tumour will rapidly reform if the therapy eliminates non-tumorigenic cancer cells but spares a significant population of the CSCs (Al-Hajj and Clarke, 2004). Stem cells having a different property and exhibit unique feature. According to their originating sites, differentiation pattern, migration and varying capacities of the rate of proliferation, etc. These functions might be utilized for development and determine of antitumor therapeutic application (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The therapeutic approach for treatment to cancer by stem cell therapy

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