Role of microRNA-regulated cancer stem cells in recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 1 Hepatic cancer stem cell markers and their roles in hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence

Markers	Biological functions in LCSCs	Signaling pathways	Recurrence	Ref.
CD133	Tumor angiogenesis, growth, self-renewal, invasion, and chemoresistance	AKT/PKB, IL-8/CXCL1, Notch	High recurrence	[16-23]
CD90	Preferably in poorly differentiated HCC, inflammation, circulation, drug resistance, and lipid metabolism	TGF-β/Smad	A shorter time to recurrence	[25-28]
CD44	Extensive proliferation, self-renewal, invasion, and tunorigenicity	TGF-β, AKT/GSK-3β/β-catenin, AKT/ERK/CXCR4	The significant risk factors of recurrence	[30-36]
CD24	Cell surface glycoprotein, drives CSC genesis	Stat3/Notch	A prognostic predictor for recurrence-free survival	[37-41]
CD13	Tumorigenicity, cell proliferation, cell cycle, self-renewal, and chemoresistance	ERK1/2	Early recurrence	[42-44]
CD47	Tumor initiation, self-renewal, and metastasis	CTSS/PAR2, NF-κB, IL-6	Shorter recurrence-free survival	[45-47]
OV6	Invasive and metastatic potential, form tumors, invasiveness, metastasis, substantial chemoresistance	Wnt/β-catenin, CXCL12/CXCR4/β-catenin		[48,49]
EpCAM	An early biomarker for HCC, self-renewal, differentiation, chemoresistance, highly invasion and tumorigenisis	Wnt/β-catenin	High recurrence	[50-54]

HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; CSC: Cancer stem cell; LCSCs: Liver cancer stem cells.