Fig. 5: Anti-cancer therapy targeting CSCs through mTOR signaling pathway.
From: Targeted therapy of cancer stem cells: inhibition of mTOR in pre-clinical and clinical research
The mTOR pathway-mediated cellular mechanisms in CSCs are summarized (purple box in left), and the results of mTOR inhibition is also described (pink box in right). In CSCs, mTOR signal induce unlimited tumorigenesis, metastasis [19,20,21,22,23], tumor development, and radio/chemo-resistance [39, 40], resulting in relapse of cancer and failure in anti-cancer therapy. However, by inhibiting mTOR signaling pathway, CSC viability and ability decrease [89, 95, 97,98,99, 102, 109], radio/chemo-sensitivity increase, alleviating resistance [100], tumor suppression is induced, resulting in cancer cell apoptosis [87, 88, 90,91,92, 108, 111]. Therefore, elimination of the CSCs using mTOR inhibition is a powerful strategy with potentials in anti-cancer therapy.
