Cancer stem cells (CSC) form a specific population within the tumor that has been shown to have self-renewal and differentiation properties, increased ability to migrate and form metastases, and increased resistance to chemotherapy. Consequently, even a small number of cells remaining after therapy can repopulate the tumor and cause recurrence of the disease. CSCs in Wilms tumor, a pediatric renal cancer, were previously shown to be characterized by neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) expression. Therefore, NCAM provides a specific biomarker through which the CSC population in this tumor can be targeted. We have recently developed an NCAM-targeted nanosized conjugate of paclitaxel bound to a biodegradable polyglutamic acid polymer. In this work, we examined the ability of the conjugate to inhibit Wilms tumor by targeting the NCAM-expressing CSCs. Results show that the conjugate selectively depleted the CSC population of the tumors and effectively inhibited tumor growth without causing toxicity. We propose that the NCAM-targeted conjugate could be an effective therapeutic for Wilms tumor. Mol Cancer Ther; 16(11); 2462–72. ©2017 AACR .

中文翻译：

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Wilms肿瘤表达NCAM的癌症干细胞作为聚合物纳米医学的潜在治疗目标。

癌症干细胞（CSC）在肿瘤内形成特定的种群，已被证明具有自我更新和分化特性，迁移和形成转移的能力增强以及对化学疗法的抵抗力增强。因此，即使在治疗后残留的少量细胞也可以使肿瘤重新繁殖并导致疾病复发。先前已证明，Wilms肿瘤（小儿肾癌）中的CSCs具有神经细胞粘附分子（NCAM）表达的特征。因此，NCAM提供了一种特定的生物标志物，通过该标志物可以靶向该肿瘤中的CSC群体。我们最近开发了NCAM靶向的紫杉醇的纳米共轭物，可结合到可生物降解的聚谷氨酸聚合物上。在这项工作中，我们通过靶向表达NCAM的CSCs检测了缀合物抑制Wilms肿瘤的能力。结果表明，缀合物选择性地耗尽了肿瘤的CSC群体，并有效地抑制了肿瘤的生长而没有引起毒性。我们建议，靶向NCAM的结合物可能是治疗Wilms肿瘤的有效方法。分子癌疗法；16（11）; 2462–72。©2017 AACR。