Xie FY, Xu WH, Yin C, Zhang GQ, Zhong YQ, Gao J. Nanomedicine strategies for sustained, controlled, and targeted treatment of cancer stem cells of the digestive system. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2016; 8(10): 735-744 [PMID: 27795813 DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i10.735]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jie Gao, PhD, Associate Professor, Associated Director of Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, the Second Military Medical University, 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China. gaojie@smmu.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Fang-Yuan Xie, Guo-Qing Zhang, Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai 200438, China
Fang-Yuan Xie, Yan-Qiang Zhong, Jie Gao, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Wei-Heng Xu, Department of Biochemical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Chuan Yin, Department of Gastroenterology, Changzheng Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200003, China
Author contributions: Xie FY, Xu WH and Yin C contributed equally to this work; all the authors contributed to this article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of the senior author or other coauthors contributed their efforts in this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jie Gao, PhD, Associate Professor, Associated Director of Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, the Second Military Medical University, 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China. gaojie@smmu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-21-81871286 Fax: +86-21-81870801
Received: April 7, 2016 Peer-review started: April 7, 2016 First decision: June 6, 2016 Revised: June 24, 2016 Accepted: August 6, 2016 Article in press: August 8, 2016 Published online: October 15, 2016 Processing time: 176 Days and 4.8 Hours
Abstract
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) constitute a small proportion of the cancer cells that have self-renewal capacity and tumor-initiating ability. They have been identified in a variety of tumors, including tumors of the digestive system. CSCs exhibit some unique characteristics, which are responsible for cancer metastasis and recurrence. Consequently, the development of effective therapeutic strategies against CSCs plays a key role in increasing the efficacy of cancer therapy. Several potential approaches to target CSCs of the digestive system have been explored, including targeting CSC surface markers and signaling pathways, inducing the differentiation of CSCs, altering the tumor microenvironment or niche, and inhibiting ATP-driven efflux transporters. However, conventional therapies may not successfully eradicate CSCs owing to various problems, including poor solubility, stability, rapid clearance, poor cellular uptake, and unacceptable cytotoxicity. Nanomedicine strategies, which include drug, gene, targeted, and combinational delivery, could solve these problems and significantly improve the therapeutic index. This review briefly summarizes the ongoing development of strategies and nanomedicine-based therapies against CSCs of the digestive system.
Core tip: There are reviews in the literature contributed to the applications of nanotechnology for the detection and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. However this is a first review to report the current development of strategies and nanomedicine-based therapies against cancer stem cells of the digestive system.
