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Current Cancer Drug Targets

Editor-in-Chief

ISSN (Print): 1568-0096
ISSN (Online): 1873-5576

Review Article

Lung Cancer Stem Cells: An Epigenetic Perspective

Author(s): Samriddhi Shukla, Sajid Khan, Sonam Sinha and Syed Musthapa Meeran*

Volume 18, Issue 1, 2018

Page: [16 - 31] Pages: 16

DOI: 10.2174/1568009617666170206104623

Price: $65

Abstract

Lung cancer remains the major cause of human mortality among all the cancer types despite the colossal amount of efforts to prevent the cancer onset and to provide the appropriate cure. Recent reports have identified that important contributors of lung cancer-related mortality are the drug resistance and aggressive tumor relapse, the characteristics contributed by the presence of lung cancer stem cells (CSCs). The identification of lung CSCs is inherently complex due to the quiescent nature of lung epithelium, which makes the distinction between the normal lung epithelium and lung CSCs difficult. Recently, multiple researches have helped in the identification of lung CSCs based on the presence or absence of certain specific types of stem cell markers. Maintenance of lung CSCs is chiefly mediated through the epigenetic modifications of their genome. In this review, we will discuss about the origin of lung CSCs and the role of epigenetic modifications in their maintenance. We will also discuss in brief the major lung CSC markers and the therapeutic approaches to selectively target this population of cells.

Keywords: Lung cancer stem cells, epigenetic reprogramming, DNA methylation, chromatin remodeling, miRNAs, stem cell markers.

Graphical Abstract

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