Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Aug 26, 2019; 11(8): 519-534
Published online Aug 26, 2019. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v11.i8.519
Linking stemness with colorectal cancer initiation, progression, and therapy
Deepak Narayanan Iyer, Wai-Yan Sin, Lui Ng
Deepak Narayanan Iyer, Wai-Yan Sin, Lui Ng, Department of Surgery, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Author contributions: Iyer DN, Sin WY and Ng L equally contributed to the literature review, as well as writing, editing, and revision of the manuscript, and approved the final version of the article to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the Authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that 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/
Corresponding author: Lui Ng, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China. luing@hku.hk
Telephone: +852-3917-9817
Received: February 21, 2019
Peer-review started: February 22, 2019
First decision: June 3, 2019
Revised: June 12, 2019
Accepted: June 20, 2019
Article in press: June 20, 2019
Published online: August 26, 2019
Processing time: 186 Days and 18.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: With the advancement of technology, the importance of deciphering the roles of stem cells in normal and malignant intestinal biology has grown tremendously. Aided by several molecular and environmental factors, evidence suggests that colorectal cancer stem cells exploit the intestinal cellular framework causing the development and spread of the disease, simultaneously promoting a poor prognosis through drug resistance and recurrence-based events. Only by a better understanding of the biology of these cells can there be an improvement in the strategies associated with clinical monitoring and therapeutic targeting required for disease management.