Bypassing Mechanisms of Mitochondria-Mediated Cancer Stem Cells Resistance to Chemo- and Radiotherapy

Figure 1

CSCs survival after chemo-/radiotherapy. The percentage of CSCs in a tumor varies depending on tumor type and tumor stage but generally comprises 0.5–5%. Most CCs in a tumor are killed after radiation or conventional chemotherapy (i.e., CDDP). The most important consequence of this is that although the tumor disappears in some cases (i.e., by image such us nuclear magnetic resonance), the percentage of CSCs has not diminished; quite the contrary it increased in proportion to the whole number of microscopically tumoral cells (reaching till 50% or more). CSCs left behind unaffected, due to their chemo- and radioresistance, eventually will experience metabolic reprograming to give rise to new CCs and CSCs, nesting the gap left by the tumor often with more aggressive phenotype. The cotreatment of conventional therapy with a more specific drug against CSCs (i.e., LND) in parallel will solve this problem.