Advances in Cancer Stem Cell Therapy: Targets and Treatments

Cancer stem cells (CSCs), a highly clonogenic subpopulation of tumour cells are held to be one of the biggest causes of cancer relapse, metastasis and subsequent mortality. The increasing emergence of evidence in support of the CSC hypothesis has had dramatic implications on our understanding of disease progression and it also offers us the opportunity to develop novel therapeutics that specifically target and eradicate these CSCs. Monoclonal antibodies, small molecule inhibitors, siRNAs and miRNAs are some of the most important molecules in this category. Many of these agents have the ability to either preferentially seek out and kill the CSCs in a tumour based on their biomarker profiles, gene expression signatures and active signalling pathways or to bypass the CSCs’ resistance mechanisms and thus prove more effective as compared to traditional chemotherapy. This review aims to provide an overview of the recent developments in the field of anti-CSC therapeutics, embodied in the form of patent documents. Patents from WIPO, USPTO, Patentscope and European patent databases have been consulted; and the current trend and the sheer number of patents and clinical trials suggests that CSC-specific therapeutics hold great promise for the future of disease management.