High aldehyde dehydrogenase and expression of cancer stem cell markers selects for breast cancer cells with enhanced malignant and metastatic ability

Abstract

Introduction Breast cancer is a leading cause of death in women, due primarily to ineffective treatment of metastasis. Metastasis is a multi-step process that involves tumour cell escape from the primary tumour

Implications of Different Cancer Stem Cell Phenotypes in Breast Cancer

“…Cells with a CSC phenotype characterized by ALDH activity were shown to have an improved ability for metastatic behavior in vitro (adhesion, colony formation, migration, and invasion) and metastases in vivo, supporting the hypothesis that CSCs might act as metastasis-initiating cells (14,49,(52)(53)(54).…”

“…Using the ALDH high /CD44 + /CD24 −/low and ALDH high phenotypes, Croker et al (52) and Charafe-Jauffret et al (14), respectively, provided the first direct experimental evidence implicating ALDH high cells in breast cancer metastases in vivo. Cells with a CSC phenotype characterized by ALDH activity were shown to have an improved ability for metastatic behavior in vitro (adhesion, colony formation, migration, and invasion) and metastases in vivo, supporting the hypothesis that CSCs might act as metastasis-initiating cells (14,49,(52)(53)(54).…”

“…As a consequence, different BCSC phenotypes have been described and characterized, and in the future, other molecules will be reported to have stem cell properties. Beyond the tenets of the CSC model, it is important to define which BCSC phenotypes have high tumorigenic potential and also great ability to resist therapeutic agents (14). Moreover, it is also crucial to determine which oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes, other than those already described, are consistently mutated within these phenotypes being able to drive tumorigenesis.…”

Cancer cells in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and tumor-propagating–cancer stem cells: distinct, overlapping or same populations

“…There is no congruence between ALDH and CD44 expressions. In this case, the CSC-TPC are the most competitive cells (Croker et al, 2009).…”

“…Most of the recent literature (Maenhaut et al, 2010) and studies (Croker et al, 2009;Clement et al, 2010;Hu et al, 2010) suggest that CSC-TPC are highly proliferative. This concept fits in well with the strong inverse correlation between the number of multiplying cancer cells and the survival of breast cancer patients, but of course other models could explain this correlation.…”