Identification of cancer-stem cell antigens and development of CTL-mediated cancer immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancer-stem cells (or cancer-stem like cells, CSC) play an indispensable role in tumor initiation or tumor development in vivo. However, CSCs are resistant to conventional therapies including chemo/radiotherapy and a certain molecularly-targeted therapy, thereby are responsible for tumor relapse or metastasis in clinical settings. In this review, we focus on cytotoxic T-cell mediated immune responses against CSCs and discuss a challenge of targeting CSCs as well as the development of CSC-based cancer immunotherapy, which is an emerging and promising strategy toward a complete cure of quite a few types of cancers.