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CNS & Neurological Disorders - Drug Targets

Editor-in-Chief

ISSN (Print): 1871-5273
ISSN (Online): 1996-3181

Review Article

Neuroblastoma and Stem Cell Therapy: An Updated Review

Author(s): Manoj Kumar Gupta, Suresh Mallepalli, Amooru Damu and Ramakrishna Vadde*

Volume 20, Issue 7, 2021

Published on: 02 November, 2020

Page: [625 - 643] Pages: 19

DOI: 10.2174/1871527319666201102100911

Price: $65

Abstract

Neuroblastoma (NBM) is the second leading pediatric cancer that develops from the precursors of the sympathetic nervous system. To date, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation serve as the first-line treatment against NBM in high-risk patients. However, few of these approaches have severe side effects. Recently, numerous studies have also reported that high chemotherapy doses, along with stem cell rescue, improvise event-free survival in patients. In this review, the authors attempted to discuss the pathogenesis associated with NBM and how stem cell therapy can be employed for the treatment of NBM. Stem cells are a group of multipotent, undifferentiated cells that are capable of producing all cells in a particular tissue, organ, or organism. They have an endogenous self-renewal property. This property is tightly modulated for the normal homeostasis within the body. However, the failure of this process leads to carcinogenesis, including NBM. As these properties are modulated via various intrinsic as well as extrinsic pathways, the arrest of these pathways via various drugs may help in controlling various carcinomas, including NBM. Recently, stem cells were utilized for the diagnosis and treatment of NBM. Nevertheless, most of the studies conducted to date are mainly designed on bulk-cell analysis, which in turn provides little information about the population of cells. Thus, the authors believe that, by employing single-cell RNA sequencing technologies and computational approaches, we can unmask the tumor heterogeneity in NBM in a more comprehensive way. In the near future, this information will be highly useful for the identification of biomarkers and treatment associated with NBM in humans.

Keywords: Neuroblastoma, pathogenesis, chemotherapy, stem cell therapy, drugs, carcinogenesis.

Graphical Abstract

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