Inhibitors
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are cancerous cells that show properties of normal stem cells. They are a small population of cancerous cells within a tumor or among the circulating cancerous cells of leukemia. They show unlimited self-renewal, differentiate into different lineages, metastasize and are highly tumorigenic. CSCs are formed by the transformation of adult stem cells and differentiated cells by genetic mutations. CSCs are identified and isolated using cell markers such as CD133, CD44, EpCAM etc. CSCs are resistant to chemotherapy as they grow slowly in a niche, show drug efflux and drug enzymatic inactivation mechanisms. If the chemotherapy does not kill CSCs, the cancer will restart, grow and metastasize. Therefore, targeting CSC-related signaling pathways is emerging as a potential approach to treat cancer. The major pathways affecting CSCs include the Wnt, Hedgehog and Notch pathways. These pathways regulate normal cell proliferation, tissue regeneration, existence of stem cells and embryonic development.
Many small molecule inhibitors of CSC-related signaling pathways are in phase I/II clinical trials for solid tumors and leukemia such as Ipafricept and Vantictumab which target the Wnt pathway and Crenigacestat and CB-103, which target the Notch Pathway. The Smo inhibitors targeting the Hedgehog signaling pathway, vismodegib, sonidegib, and glasdegib have been approved for the treatment of basal cell carcinoma. Inhibitors targeting CSCs in other pathways include BMP, BMI, PI3K/Akt, and STAT which have also shown great promise. STAT3 inhibitor BBI608 is being evaluated in phase III trial for a variety of cancers. BioVison offers a broad range of Cancer Stem Cell Inhibitors targeting different proteins such as Niclosamide and VS-5584 which inhibit STAT3 and PI3K/mTOR kinase respectively, for eradication of CSCs and cancer recurrence. BioVision’s products have been well validated by researchers all around the world, with an increasing number of citations available in scientific publications.