Title:Emerging Prospects for the Study of Colorectal Cancer Stem Cells using
Patient-derived Organoids
Volume: 22
Issue: 3
Author(s): Ling Ding, Yuning Yang, Qin Lu, Zhiyun Cao*Nathaniel Weygant*
Affiliation:
- Academy of Integrative Medicine, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fuzhou, CN 350122, China
- Key Laboratory of Integrative Medicine, Fujian Province University, Fuzhou, Fujian,
CN 350122, China
- Academy of Integrative Medicine, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fuzhou, CN 350122, China
- Fujian Key Laboratory for Integrative Medicine in Geriatrics, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine,
Fuzhou, CN 350122, China
Keywords:
Colorectal cancer, cancer stem cells, tumor microenvironment, patient-derived organoids, personalized medicine, LGR5.
Abstract: Human colorectal cancer (CRC) patient-derived organoids (PDOs) are a powerful ex
vivo platform to directly assess the impact of molecular alterations and therapies on tumor cell proliferation,
differentiation, response to chemotherapy, tumor-microenvironment interactions, and
other facets of CRC biology. Next-generation sequencing studies have demonstrated that CRC is a
highly heterogeneous disease with multiple distinct subtypes. PDOs are a promising new tool to
study CRC due to their ability to accurately recapitulate their source tumor and thus reproduce this
heterogeneity. This review summarizes the state-of-the-art for CRC PDOs in the study of cancer
stem cells (CSCs) and the cancer stem cell niche. Areas of focus include the relevance of PDOs to
understanding CSC-related paracrine signaling, identifying interactions between CSCs and the tumor
microenvironment, and modeling CSC-driven resistance to chemotherapies and targeted therapies.
Finally, we summarize current findings regarding the identification and verification of CSC
targets using PDOs and their potential use in personalized medicine.