Description
In the past few years, mammary cancer initiating cells (CICs) have been identified in mouse and human as a subpopulation of tumor cells that selectively posses tumor initiation and self-renewal capacity and the ability to give rise to bulk populations of non-tumorigenic cancer cells progeny through differentiation. They could also be responsible for tumor progression, metastasis, resistance to therapy and recurrence. Thus, the understanding of the pathways regulating CIC self-renewal, differentiation and tumorigenicity represents an important task in the development of effective anticancer therapies.