Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. May 26, 2023; 15(5): 323-341
Published online May 26, 2023. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v15.i5.323
Tissue-specific cancer stem/progenitor cells: Therapeutic implications
Amani Yehya, Joe Youssef, Sana Hachem, Jana Ismael, Wassim Abou-Kheir
Amani Yehya, Joe Youssef, Sana Hachem, Jana Ismael, Wassim Abou-Kheir, Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon
Author contributions: Yehya A contributed conceptualization, investigation, methodology, visualization, and validation, wrote the original draft, and reviewed and edited the manuscript; Youssef J, Hachem S, and Ismael J contributed investigation, methodology, and validation, wrote the original draft, and reviewed and edited the manuscript; Abou-Kheir W contributed conceptualization, project administration, supervision, validation, and visualization, reviewed and edited the manuscript, and gave final approval; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wassim Abou-Kheir, MSc, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences, American University of Beirut, Bliss Street, Hamra, Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon. wa12@aub.edu.lb
Received: December 28, 2022
Peer-review started: December 28, 2022
First decision: January 31, 2023
Revised: February 14, 2023
Accepted: April 12, 2023
Article in press: April 12, 2023
Published online: May 26, 2023
Processing time: 149 Days and 1.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Therapeutic approaches targeting cancer stem cell (CSC) markers hold great promise toward developing effective anti-cancer treatment. Tissue-specific CSCs (TSCSCs) possess unique expression profile that allows for their identification, isolation, and targeting. TSCSCs, isolated from patient tumor tissues, were shown to form organ analogs or patient-derived organoids (PDOs) under specific culturing conditions in vitro. These models simulate the original tumor characteristics in a three-dimensional culture dish. As such, PDOs have the potential to be used in patient-specific in vitro drug clinical trials and proof-of-concept studies on CSC-targeted therapies.