Skip to main content
. 2020 Jun 24;12:19. doi: 10.1038/s41368-020-00087-0

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

Potential mechanisms by which CSCs induce relapse and metastasis. CSCs have innate radioresistance. Both the CSC niche and tumour microenvironment can enhance the radioresistance of CSCs and support CSC survival during radiotherapy through the expression of multiple cytokines that contribute to increased stemness and self-renewal of CSCs and induce EMT and hypoxic conditions, resulting in higher migration and invasion of CSCs, further leading to tumour recurrence and metastasis