Current Synthetic and Systems Biology
Open Access

Abstract

Cancers with Stem-Like Attractors and “Loss Of Differentiation” Novel Hallmark: Does the “Cyto-Education” with Stem Cell Therapy Help?

Yue Zhang

Cell fate determination includes the induction and execution of terminal differentiation. Studies of gene regulatory networks suggest that the correct fate is represented by stable dynamics. Gene expression dynamics inspectors assays show that cancer cell attractors converge to a stable stem-like state resulting from the aberrant expression of the masters involved in carcinogenesis and/ or metastasis, supporting “loss of differentiation” as a novel cancer hallmark. Cancer may be considered an aberrant reprogramming of normal cells by many factors. However, this fate could be reversed by differentiating cancerous cells into normal or terminally differentiated cells by cellular re-training (“cyto-education”).