Some recent progress on breast cancer stem cells

Abstract

BACKGROUND: With the in-depth exploration of the mechanism of breast cancer occurrence and increasing attention has been paid to breast cancer stem cell development. OBJECTIVE: To review the main progress in the characteristics, related signaling pathways, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, breast cancer metastasis and tumor microenvironment about breast cancer stem cells. METHODS: A computer-based retrieval of PubMed database was performed in order to search relevant articles published from 2001 to 2017, using the keywords of “breast cancer, stem cells, signaling pathway, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, tumor microenvironment”. After removal of repetitive or irrelevant articles, 60 articles were finally reviewed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The tumor stem cell theory explains the root cause of tumor metastasis and recurrence, and provides a new insight into the tumor treatment. With the further study on the molecular pathogenesis, characteristics and related molecular regulation mechanisms of breast cancer stem cells, the role of breast cancer stem cells is explicated in the development and progression of breast cancer, which is of great significance in the tumor treatment targeting breast cancer stem cells.