Cancer Stem Cells and Immunotherapy

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a small sub-population of cancer cells, with characteristics that are associated with normal stem cells such as self-renewal and differentiating cells. CSCs predominantly reside in various tissue-specific tumors as a distinct population of cells with high migration and invasive capacity, and promote relapse and metastasis by giving rise to new tumors at the secondary site. Chemotherapies and radiotherapies are effective in killing bulk cancer cells, but not fully effective in eradicating these CSCs due to their special features such as higher expression of efflux transporters, resistance to apoptosis and an enhanced mechanism of DNA repair. Therefore, the development of specific therapies aimed at CSCs is urgently needed for the enhancement of cancer patient survival, especially for patients with metastases. Cancer immunotherapy is an important therapeutic strategy and shown imperative outcomes in curing cancer. However, recent studies showed that CSCs depicts a low expression of immune cell markers such as MHC I molecules, NK cells receptors and innate immune receptors, which facilitates escape from immune cells, NK cells and T-cells. Therefore, further various immunological approaches and improvements in immunotherapies are necessary for targeting CSCs.

Prof. Dr. Andrzej Mackiewicz
Dr. Kanakaraju Manupati
Guest Editors

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• cancer stem cells
• CSC-specific biomarkers
• immunotherapies
• signaling transduction pathways
• tumor microenvironment
• metastasis
• therapy resistance
• DNA repair
• cellular metabolism
• combination therapies