Targeting breast cancer stem cells: Principle and Update

Breast cancer is a complicated problem. Many studies have been approaching to find out its cause and how to cure this disease. For 5-10 years ago many useful properties of breast cancer stem cells have been discovered and used as targets of new targeting strategies. There are some strategies that were used to target the breast cancer stem cells such as directly targeting on self renewal, indirectly targeting on microenvironment or directly killing breast cancer stem cells. Some chemical agents causing differentiation also were used to target breast cancer stem cells. Recently, immunotherapy as well as oncolytic virus also is two potential strategies in targeting breast cancer stem cells. In this review, we will review recent progress in the development of therapies to treat breast cancer using the breast cancer stem cell targeting strategy. This review helps us understand the development of targeting therapy in breast cancer treatment as well as which strategies can become novel therapies against breast cancer.