Journal
SEMINARS IN CANCER BIOLOGY
Volume 53, Issue -, Pages 17-30Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2018.10.001
Keywords
Cancer stem cell; Cancer therapy; Embryonic transcription factors; Human endogenous retroviruses; Phenotype switching
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Cancer incidence and mortality, metastasis, drug resistance and recurrence are still the critical issues of oncological diseases. In this scenario, increasing scientific evidences demonstrate that the activation of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) is involved in the aggressiveness of tumors such as melanoma, breast, germ cell, renal, ovarian, liver and haematological cancers. In their dynamic regulation, HERVs have also proved to be important determinants of pluripotency in human embryonic stem cells (ESC) and of the reprogramming process of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). In many types of tumors, essential characteristics of aggressiveness have been associated with the achievement of sternness features, often accompanied with the identification of defined subpopulations, termed cancer stern cells (CSCs), which possess stem cell-like properties and sustain tumorigenesis. Indeed, CSCs show high self -renewal capacity with a peculiar potential in tumor initiation, progression, metastasis, heterogeneity, recurrence, radiotherapy and drug resistance. However, HERVs role in CSCs biology is still not fully elucidated. In this regard, CD133 is a widely recognized marker of CSCs, and our group demonstrated, for the first time, the requirement of HERV-K activation to expand and maintain a CD133+ melanoma cell subpopulation with sternness features in response to microenvironmental modifications. The review will discuss HERVs expression as cancer hallmark, with particular focus on their role in the regulation of cancer sternness features and the potential involvement as targets for therapy.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available