Table 1.

Example of some surface marker of CSC in different human cancers [27, 33–35]

Cancer	Gender	Marker	Stemness-associated markers	References
Head and neck	HNC is more common in men by twofold–fivefold compared to women	CD44, CD271	The highest levels of CD44 were observed in patients with advanced stages of disease as compared to a healthy control group Using both CD44 and CD271 allowed the isolation of CSCs from HNSCC	[36–41]
Breast	Breast cancer is so common in women and—less than 1% of breast cancers occur in men	ALDH1, CD44, CD133, CD24	ALDH1+CD44+/CD24−/low cells demonstrated the strongest stem-like properties ALDH1 marker is a good predictive marker for breast cancer CD133 expression was decreased in tumors with larger tumor size, higher stage and lymphovascular invasion CD133 expression was correlated with positive HER2 status	[42–46]
Prostate cancer stem cell	Not found	CD44, CD 133	CD133+ cells were demonstrated to be able to possess a high in vitro proliferative potential	[47]
Ovarian	Not found	CD133, CD44, CD117, CD24	CD44 is one the potential marker of ovarian cancer CD 133 is one of the most commonly reported ovarian CSC surface markers CD24 is associated with tumor formation, metastasis, poor prognosis, chemoresistance, and recurrence of disease	[48, 49]
Colon	Higher colon cancer age-adjusted incidence among men than women	EpCAM, CD44, CD29, CD24, CD133, CD166	CD133 is considered a specific marker of primary colorectal CSCs CD166 can be considered together with other markers, such as CD44, CD24, CD29 and CD26	[50–53]
Renal cancer stem cells	Renal cell carcinoma occurrence 2 to 3 times higher in men than in women	CD105, ALDH1, OCT4, CD133	CD44−CD105− displaying stem-like phenotype	[54–56]
Hematological and leukemic stem cells	Females were slightly more affected compared with males	CD19, CD34, CD26, CD38, CD33+	Lack of CD34 or high CD38 expression is associated with favorable prognosis	[57–59]
Bone marrow (BM)	Gender differences was not statistically significant	CD10, CD19 and CD34	BM case is CD19+ CD10+ B cell precursors and the percentage of CD34+ was also higher than normal case. Commonly CD10+ is detected, too	[60, 61]
Brain	Glioblastoma incidence is 60 percent higher in males than in females	CD15, CD90, CD133	CD15 exhibited stable expression in long-term cultured tumor spheres, whereas CD133 expression decreased significantly in late passages CD15 can be used as a marker of stem-like cells derived from brain tumors in all stages	[62, 63]
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)	Hepatocellular carcinoma was more aggressive in male	EpCAM, CD133, CD44, CD90, CD133	EpCAM or CD133 has been used commonly as the tumor initiating cells marker in hepatocellular carcinoma CD90 may be considered to be a marker for invasion, migration, and metastasis	[64–66]
Melanoma stem cells	The majority of people who develop melanoma are white men over age 55	CD271, CD20,	CD271 associated with metastasis and maintains long-term tumor growth	[67, 67]
Endometrial	Endometrial cancer is the sixth most commonly occurring cancer in women	ALDH1, CD133	ALDH cells demonstrated greater endometrial cancer stem cell activity than CD133 cells and had increased expression of stem cell and epithelial–mesenchymal transition gene	[69]
Lung	Men develop lung cancer more often than women	CD44, CD166, CD133	Increased expression of CD44 was significantly correlated with higher grade tumors The expression of the adhesion molecule CD166 in primary lung cancer is associated with smaller tumors with no lymph node metastasis CD166 population shows higher in vivo tumor initiating capacity in comparison to CD133+, CD44+, and EpCAM+ cells isolated from the same cells	[70–72]