Farina AR, Cappabianca LA, Zelli V, Sebastiano M, Mackay AR. Mechanisms involved in selecting and maintaining neuroblastoma cancer stem cell populations, and perspectives for therapeutic targeting. World J Stem Cells 2021; 13(7): 685-736 [PMID: 34367474 DOI: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i7.685]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Andrew Reay Mackay, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Clinical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Via Vetoio, Coppito 2, L'Aquila 67100, AQ, Italy. andrewreay.mackay@univaq.it
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
Antonietta Rosella Farina, Lucia Annamaria Cappabianca, Veronica Zelli, Michela Sebastiano, Andrew Reay Mackay, Department of Applied Clinical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila 67100, AQ, Italy
Author contributions: Mackay AR and Farina AR were responsible for several articles reviewed in this manuscript and co-wrote this review; Cappabianca LA was involved in several articles reviewed in this manuscript; Zelli V researched literature for this manuscript; Sebastiano M was involved in research in an article reviewed in this manuscript, researched literature for this manuscript and revised the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors of this manuscript declare no conflicts of interest.
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 NonCommercial (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: Andrew Reay Mackay, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Clinical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Via Vetoio, Coppito 2, L'Aquila 67100, AQ, Italy. andrewreay.mackay@univaq.it
Received: January 27, 2021 Peer-review started: January 27, 2021 First decision: February 28, 2021 Revised: March 9, 2021 Accepted: April 14, 2021 Article in press: April 14, 2021 Published online: July 26, 2021 Processing time: 177 Days and 2.8 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Cancer stem cells promote tumour-heterogeneity, post-therapeutic relapse and metastatic progression in neuroblastomas (NBs), by way of their drug-resistant, self-renewing and reversibly plastic phenotypes, and are, therefore, critical targets to eliminate if improvements in therapeutic outcomes are to be realized. Despite progress in understanding the molecular mechanisms that underpin NB cancer stem cell (CSC) selection, promotion and maintenance, efficacious CSC targeting remains difficult. Here we review the molecular mechanisms considered to regulate NB CSCs, together with the therapeutic strategies and future prospects for their eradication, highlighting the need for a better understanding and targeting of polyploid giant cancer cell states, future prospects for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) cell immunotherapies, the need to identify additional functional cell surface NB CSC-specific targets and to develop better models for NB CSC experimental therapeutics.
