Table 1.

Recent findings depict the clinical relevance of CSCs and suggest novel treatment modalities to shrink the CSC population and reduce the inavsive and therapeutic resistant properties of tumors.

Finding	Significance	Reference
CSCs are senescent	Dormancy allows CSCs to resist conventional cancer treatments.	[78,79]
CSCs overexpress Rad51	Rad51 assists in DNA repair following double strand breaks. Overexpressing Rad51 allows CSCs to repair damage caused by chemotherapy and radiation.	[49,95–98]
BMPs induce differentiation in stem cells	Treating CSCs with BMPs may initiate differentiation and thus decrease proliferation and tumor growth.	[116–121]
Self-renewal of CSCs begets chemoresistance	Therapies that prompt CSCs to adopt committed states may reduce aggression, invasive capabilities and therapeutic resistance.	[109–115]
Hypoxia induces expansion of the CSC population	Targeting HIF1α and HIF2α with inhibitors may halt expansion of the CSC population and reduce tumor progression.	[18,102,103]