0000000000025365
AUTHOR
M L De Angelis
Elimination of quiescent/slow-proliferating cancer stem cells by Bcl-XL inhibition in non-small cell lung cancer
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, urging the discovery of novel molecular targets and therapeutic strategies. Stem cells have been recently isolated from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), thus allowing the investigation of molecular pathways specifically active in the tumorigenic population. We have found that Bcl-XL is constantly expressed by lung cancer stem cells (LCSCs) and has a prominent role in regulating LCSC survival. Whereas chemotherapeutic agents were scarcely effective against LCSC, the small molecule Bcl-2/Bcl-XL inhibitor ABT-737, but not the selective Bcl-2 inhibitor ABT-199, induced LCSC death at nanomolar concentrations. Differen…
Dynamic regulation of the cancer stem cell compartment by Cripto-1 in colorectal cancer.
Stemness was recently depicted as a dynamic condition in normal and tumor cells. We found that the embryonic protein Cripto-1 (CR1) was expressed by normal stem cells at the bottom of colonic crypts and by cancer stem cells (CSCs) in colorectal tumor tissues. CR1-positive populations isolated from patient-derived tumor spheroids exhibited increased clonogenic capacity and expression of stem-cell-related genes. CR1 expression in tumor spheroids was variable over time, being subject to a complex regulation of the intracellular, surface and secreted protein, which was related to changes of the clonogenic capacity at the population level. CR1 silencing induced CSC growth arrest in vitro with a …