Metastasis and resistance to cancer therapeutics are critical barriers to curing cancer. This special issue entitled “Cancer Metastasis and Therapeutic Resistance” contains nine original contributions. The articles span a variety of human...
Therapeutic resistance is an inevitable impediment towards effective cancer therapies. Evidence accumulated has shown that the signaling pathways and related factors are fundamentally responsible for therapeutic resistance via regulating diverse cell...
Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide with a 5-year survival rate of less than 18%. Current treatment modalities include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy. Despite adva...
Relapsed disease following first-line therapy remains one of the central problems in cancer management, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, growth factor receptor-based targeted therapy, and immune checkpoint-based immunotherapy. Cancer cells devel...
Ionizing radiation (IR), such as X-rays and gamma (γ)-rays, mediates various forms of cancer cell death such as apoptosis, necrosis, autophagy, mitotic catastrophe, and senescence. Among them, apoptosis and mitotic catastrophe are the main mechanisms...
Development of resistance to therapy in ovarian cancer is a major hinderance for therapeutic efficacy; however, new mechanisms of the resistance remain to be elucidated. NADPH oxidase 4 (NOX4) is responsible for higher NADPH activity to increase reac...
Cancer ranks as the second leading cause of death worldwide, causing a large social and economic burden. However, most anti-cancer treatments face the problems of tumor recurrence and metastasis. Therefore, finding an effective cure for cancer needs...
Esophageal cancer (EC) is an aggressive form of cancer, including squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and adenocarcinoma (EAC) as two predominant histological subtypes. Accumulating evidence supports the existence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) able to initi...
The connection between epithelial-mesenchymal (E-M) plasticity and cancer stem cell (CSC) properties has been paradigm-shifting, linking tumor cell invasion and metastasis with therapeutic recurrence. However, despite their importance, the molecular...
The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) comprises an important biological mechanism not only for cancer progression but also in the therapeutic resistance of cancer cells. While the importance of the protein abundance of EMT-inducers, such as Sna...
Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most frequent cancer and the fifth leading cause of cancer death among men worldwide. At first, advanced PCa is treated by androgen deprivation therapy with a good initial response. Nevertheless, recurrences occur,...
The emerging concept of cancer stem cells (CSCs) as the key driver behind carcinogenesis, progression, and diversity has displaced the prior model of a tumor composed of cells with similar subsequently acquired mutations and an equivalent capacity fo...
The diverse repertoires of cellular mechanisms that progress certain cancer types are being uncovered by recent research and leading to more effective treatment options. Ovarian cancer (OC) is among the most difficult cancers to treat. OC has limited...
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most lethal cancers worldwide, accounting for nearly ~10% of all cancer diagnoses and deaths. Current therapeutic approaches have considerably increased survival for patients diagnosed at early stages; however, ~...
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play a central role in tumor progression, recurrence, and resistance to conventional therapies, making them a critical focus in oncology research. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of CSC biology, emphasizing thei...
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive, prevalent, and distinct subtype of breast cancer characterized by high recurrence rates and poor clinical prognosis, devoid of both predictive markers and potential therapeutic targets. Mic...
The major challenge in the treatment of patients with advanced lethal prostate cancer is therapeutic resistance to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) and chemotherapy. Overriding this resistance requires understanding of the driving mechanisms of the...
Multidrug resistance (MDR) remains a formidable barrier to successful cancer treatment, driven by mechanisms such as efflux pump overexpression, enhanced DNA repair, evasion of apoptosis and the protective characteristics of the tumour microenvironme...
Metastatic spread represents the leading cause of disease-related mortality among cancer patients. Many cancer patients suffer from metastatic relapse years or even decades after radical surgery for the primary tumor. This clinical phenomenon is expl...
Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy among men, and progression to metastasis and the emergence of therapeutically resistant disease confers a high mortality rate. Growing evidence implicates inflammation as a driver of prostate cancer devel...
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) surpasses other BC subtypes as the most challenging to treat due to its lack of traditional BC biomarkers. Nearly 30% of TNBC patients express the androgen receptor (AR), and the blockade of androgen production an...
Anticancer drug resistance is a significant impediment in current cancer treatment. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from cancer cells were recently acknowledged as a critical mechanism of drug resistance, tumor progression, and metastasis. EVs a...
Antioxidants play a pivotal role in neutralizing reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are known to induce oxidative stress. In the context of cancer development, cancer cells adeptly maintain elevated levels of both ROS and antioxidants through a pro...
The rise of drug resistance in cancer cells presents a formidable challenge in modern oncology, necessitating the exploration of innovative therapeutic strategies. This review investigates the latest advancements in overcoming drug resistance mechani...
Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common cancers in European males. Although therapeutic approaches have changed in recent years, and several new drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), androgen deprivation therapy...
Current common treatments for castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) typically belong to one of three major categories: next-generation anti-androgen therapies (NGAT) including enzalutamide, abiraterone acetate, apalutamide, and darolutamide; ta...
Cancer remains a major global health challenge, largely due to its biological heterogeneity and the capacity of tumor cells to adapt under metabolic and environmental stress. Lipid metabolism has increasingly been recognized as a contributor to tumor...
Resistance to cancer treatment is one of the major challenges currently faced when treating gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. A major contributing factor to this resistance is the presence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in GI cancers (e.g., colorectal, pan...
Endocrine therapy is the main treatment for hormone receptor-positive (HR+) breast cancer. However, advanced tumors develop resistance to endocrine therapy, rendering it ineffective as the disease progresses. There are several molecular mechanisms of...
Radiation resistance is a significant clinical problem in rectal cancer treatment, the mechanisms of which are poorly understood. NRF2 signalling is known to contribute to chemo/radioresistance in some cancers, but its role in therapeutic resistance...
The development of therapy resistance still represents a major hurdle in treating cancers, leading to impaired treatment success and increased patient morbidity. The establishment of minimally invasive liquid biopsies is a promising approach to impro...
Quiescent cancer cells (QCCs) are nonproliferating cells arrested in the G0 phase, characterized by ki67low and p27high. QCCs avoid most chemotherapies, and some treatments could further lead to a higher proportion of QCCs in tumors. QCCs are also as...
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, with therapeutic resistance continuing to limit long-term responses. Among emerging resistance mechanisms, dysregulation of nucleocytoplasmic transport has gain...
Although there have been many advances in recent years for the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC), it still remains the third most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Many patients with late stage CRC display resistance to multiple dif...
Myc is a nuclear transcription factor that mainly regulates cell growth, cell cycle, metabolism, and survival. Myc family proteins contain c-Myc, n-Myc, and l-Myc. Among them, c-Myc can become a promising therapeutic target molecule in cancer. Cancer...
Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent form of regulated cell death marked by lipid peroxidation in polyunsaturated phospholipids. In head and neck cancer (HNC), where resistance to chemotherapy and immunotherapy is common, ferroptosis offers a mechanistic...
Colorectal cancer (CRC) represents one of the most widespread forms of cancer in the population and, as all malignant tumors, often develops resistance to chemotherapies with consequent tumor growth and spreading leading to the patient’s premature de...
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), is defined as a type of tumor lacking the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). The ER, PR and HER2 are usually the molecular therap...
Breast cancer (BRCA) is a highly heterogeneous systemic disease. It is ranked first globally in the incidence of new cancer cases and has emerged as the primary cause of cancer-related death among females. Among the distinct subtypes of BRCA, triple-...
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as a potential therapeutic option for most localized cancers. Its high measure of specificity and minimal risk of side effects compared to other therapies has put PDT on the forefront of cancer research in the c...
Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) is a key transcription factor that regulates the transcription of many genes that are responsible for the adaptation and survival of tumor cells in hypoxic environments. Over the past few decades, tremendous efforts...
Drug resistance remains a significant challenge in the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC). In recent years, the emerging field of ferroptosis, a unique form of regulated cell death characterized by iron-dependent lipid peroxidation, has offered new...
Resistance to therapy in patients with solid cancers represents a daunting challenge that must be addressed. Indeed, current strategies are still not effective in the majority of patients; which has resulted in the need for novel therapeutic approach...
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, highlighting a major clinical challenge. Lung cancer is broadly classified into two histologically distinct subtypes, termed small cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small cell lung can...
Ferroptosis is a non-apoptotic, iron-dependent form of cell death. The characteristic accumulation of membrane lipid peroxides that occurs is controlled by several different mechanisms including redox homeostasis, the intracellular labile iron pool,...
Background: As per recent scenarios, drug resistance is a significant challenge in treating breast cancer for several reasons, such as genetic mutations, altered signaling pathways, and tumor microenvironment. Endocrine resistance is one of the bigge...
Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common malignancy and the fifth cause of cancer death in men. The treatment for localized or locally advanced stages offers a high probability of cure. Even though the therapeutic landscape has significantly improved...
The recent success of Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors has led to the approval of four different PARP inhibitors for the treatment of BRCA1/2-mutant breast and ovarian cancers. About 40–50% of BRCA1/2-mutated patients do not respo...
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) remains the most aggressive breast cancer subtype, characterized by profound heterogeneity and a lack of effective targeted therapies. Although cytotoxic chemotherapy is the standard of care, the rapid emergence o...
Prostate cancer (PCa) is a leading cause of cancer death in men, worldwide. Mortality is highly related to metastasis and hormone resistance, but the molecular underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We have studied the presence and role of canc...
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