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Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARPs) and poly(ADP-ribosylation) play essential roles in several biological processes, among which neoplastic transformation and telomere maintenance. In this paper, we review the poly(ADP-ribosylation) process together with the highly appealing use of PARP inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. In addition, we report our results concerning poly(ADP-ribosylation) in a cellular model system for neoplastic transformation developed in our laboratory. Here we show that PARP-1 and PARP-2 expression increases during neoplastic transformation, together with the basal levels of poly(ADP-ribosylation). Furthermore, we demonstrate a greater effect of the PARP inhibitor 3-aminobenzamide (3AB) on cellular viability in neoplastically transformed cells compared to normal fibroblasts and we show that prolonged 3AB administration to tumorigenic cells causes a decrease in telomere length. Taken together, our data support an active involvement of poly(ADP-ribosylation) in neoplastic transformation and telomere length maintenance and confirm the relevant role of poly(ADP-ribosylation) inhibition for the treatment of cancer.

Tumors are generally composed of different cell types. In recent years, it has been shown that in many types of cancers a subset of cells show peculiar characteristics, such as the ability to induce tumors when engrafted into host animals, self-renew and being immortal, and give rise to a differentiated progeny. These cells have been defined as cancer stem cells (CSCs) or tumor initiating cells. CSCs can be isolated both from tumor specimens and established cancer cell lines on the basis of their ability to exclude fluorescent dyes, express specific cell surface markers or grow in particular culture conditions. A key feature of CSCs is their resistance to chemotherapeutic agents, which could contribute to the remaining of residual cancer cells after therapeutic treatments. It has been shown that CSC-like cells can be isolated after drug treatment of cancer cell lines; in this review, we will describe the strategies so far applied to identify and isolate CSCs. Furthermore, we will discuss the possible use of these selected populations to investigate CSC biology and develop new anticancer drugs.