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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Mar 3.
Published in final edited form as: Adv Exp Med Biol. 2015;815:281–294. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-09614-8_16

Fig. 2. ALDH-expressing cells are responsible for chemoresistance and relapse of many tumors after chemotherapy.

Fig. 2

Most current chemotherapy drugs are effective against the bulk of the tumor cells. However, the high ALDH-expressing (ALDH+) cancer stem cells are resistant to these treatments. As a result, during chemotherapy, the ALDH+ cells proliferate and promote tumor growth. The resultant tumors contain an increased proportion of ALDH+ cells, making them more resistant to chemotherapy than the original tumor.