Abstract
Introduction: Failure and recurrence in breast cancer treatment cause a great obstacle in cancer therapy and identification of cell population named cancer stem cells (CSCs) in the tumor can be led us to define it as target in novel therapeutic strategy.
Objectives: The aim of this study is the finding of correlation between stemness and metastatic characteristic, also knowing CSCs as a potential target of therapy because of its developmental behavior and similarities with normal stem cells.
Materials and Methods: Here, we focus on the expression of NANOG in breast CSCs, a key molecule in the physiological process of stem cells and the Let-7a that is involved in the differentiation of the cells.
Results: In this work, we found that NANOG was highly expressed in SKBR3 and down-regulation of let-7a, as a differentiation miRNA, was found in MDA-MB-468 cells.
Conclusion: It will be critical for the developing of effective anti-tumor drugs, utilizing mentioned concepts. Inhibition of NANOG in combination with Let-7a up-regulation can help to decrease the stemness and increase the differentiation of CSCs. The decrease of stemness and increase of differentiation initiate the apoptotic process. So, modification in the mechanism of apoptosis beside anti-cancer drugs provide a good preclinical study goal. However, in order to these drugs become clinical, the problems of their side effects and toxicity must be solved. Differentiation of CSCs provides an optimal condition to activity of immune cells which never let them escape from immune cells by alteration of immunogenicity.