Metabolic Plasticity of Cancer Stem Cells in Response to Microenvironmental Cues

Abstract

An increasing body of evidence suggests that cancer stem cells (CSCs) utilize reprogrammed metabolic strategies to adapt to a hostile tumor microenvironment (TME) for survival and stemness maintenance. Such a metabolic alteration in CSCs is facilitated by microenvironmental cues including metabolites such as glucose, amino acids and lipids, and environmental properties such as hypoxic and acidic TME. Similarly, metabolites uptake from the diet exerts critical imprints to the metabolism profile of CSCs and directly influence the maintenance of the CSC population. Moreover, CSCs interact with tumor-infiltrating cells inside the CSC niche to promote cancer stemness, ultimately contributing to tumor development and progression. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of how CSCs employ metabolic plasticity in response to different microenvironmental cues represents a therapeutic opportunity for better cancer treatment.