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World J Stem Cells. Feb 26, 2018; 10(2): 15-22
Published online Feb 26, 2018. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v10.i2.15
Spatiotemporal switching signals for cancer stem cell activation in pediatric origins of adulthood cancer: Towards a watch-and-wait lifetime strategy for cancer treatment
Shengwen Calvin Li, Mustafa H Kabeer
Shengwen Calvin Li, Neuro-oncology and Stem Cell Research Laboratory, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Department of Neurology, University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, Orange, CA 92868-3874, United States
Mustafa H Kabeer, Children's Hospital of Orange County, Department of Surgery, University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, Orange, CA 92868-3874, United States
Author contributions: Li SC conceived the project and wrote the primary manuscript; Li SC and Kabeer MH revised the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Shengwen Calvin Li, PhD, Principal Investigator (Scientist), Neuro-oncology and Stem Cell Research Laboratory, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Department of Neurology, University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, 455 South Main Street, Orange, CA 92868-3874, United States. shengwel@uci.edu
Telephone: +1-714-5094964 Fax: +1-714-5094318
Received: December 22, 2017
Peer-review started: December 23, 2017
First decision: January 6, 2018
Revised: January 25, 2018
Accepted: February 24, 2018
Article in press: February 25, 2018
Published online: February 26, 2018
Processing time: 74 Days and 10.9 Hours
Abstract

Pediatric origin of cancer stem cell hypothesis holds great promise and potential in adult cancer treatment, however; the road to innovation is full of obstacles as there are plenty of questions left unanswered. First, the key question is to characterize the nature of such stem cells (concept). Second, the quantitative imaging of pediatric stem cells should be implemented (technology). Conceptually, pediatric stem cell origins of adult cancer are based on the notion that plasticity in early life developmental programming evolves local environments to cancer. Technologically, such imaging in children is lacking as all imaging is designed for adult patients. We postulate that the need for quantitative imaging to measure space-time changes of plasticity in early life developmental programming in children may trigger research and development of the imaging technology. Such quantitative imaging of pediatric origin of adulthood cancer will help develop a spatiotemporal monitoring system to determine cancer initiation and progression. Clinical validation of such speculative hypothesis-that cancer originates in a pediatric environment-will help implement a wait-and-watch strategy for cancer treatment.

Keywords: Pediatric origins of adult cancer, Imaging of single cells

Core tip: How does “spatiotemporal tracking of cancer stem cells” should be achieved in an organism for pediatric origins of adult cancer? Improving the resolution of current imaging technologies down to the single cell level is essential. However, how single cells could be tracked label-free throughout the lifetime of a human body will be challenging. Such technologies, if developed, can potentially provide an evidence base for cancer prevention and treatment.