Nakashima Moeka, Suga Naoko, Fukumoto Akari, Yoshikawa Sayuri, Matsuda Satoru
Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Nara Women's University, Kita-Uoya Nishimachi, Nara, 630-8506, Japan.
Oncol Res. 2025 Apr 18;33(5):1007-1017. doi: 10.32604/or.2025.059657. eCollection 2025.
Malignant tumors are heterogeneous diseases characterized by uncontrolled cell proliferation, invasion, metastasis, and/or recurrence of their malignancies. In particular, cancer stem cells (CSCs) within these tumors might be responsible for the property of invasiveness and/or therapies-resistance. CSCs are a self-renewing, awfully tumorigenic subpopulation of cancer cells, which are notorious for strong chemoresistance and are frequently responsible the aggravated invasion, metastasis, and/or recurrence. Developing targeting therapies against CSCs, therefore, may be deliberated a more encouraging mission for the greater cancer therapy. Innovation for a more potent anti-CSC treatment has been required as soon as possible. Interestingly, vitamin D could modulate the inflammatory condition of the tumor microenvironment (TME) by successfully affecting CSCs, which has an imperative role in determining the malignant phenotype of CSCs. In addition, vitamin D may also contribute to the regulation of the malignant behaviors of CSCs. Consistently, vitamin D could have potential applications for the significant inhibition of several tumor growths within various cancer therapies. The biological significance of vitamin D for CSCs regulation may be involved in the function of APRO family proteins. Therefore, vitamin D could be one of the innovative therapeutic modalities for the development of novel CSCs related tumor therapies.
恶性肿瘤是异质性疾病，其特征在于细胞不受控制地增殖、侵袭、转移和/或恶性肿瘤复发。特别是，这些肿瘤中的癌症干细胞（CSCs）可能是侵袭性和/或治疗抗性的原因。CSCs是癌细胞中具有自我更新能力、极具致瘤性的亚群，以强烈的化学抗性而臭名昭著，并且经常导致侵袭、转移和/或复发加剧。因此，开发针对CSCs的靶向治疗可能被认为是一项更具前景的重大癌症治疗任务。迫切需要尽快创新出更有效的抗CSC治疗方法。有趣的是，维生素D可以通过成功影响CSCs来调节肿瘤微环境（TME）的炎症状态，这在决定CSCs的恶性表型方面起着至关重要的作用。此外，维生素D也可能有助于调节CSCs的恶性行为。同样，在各种癌症治疗中，维生素D对于显著抑制多种肿瘤生长可能具有潜在应用价值。维生素D对CSCs调节的生物学意义可能涉及APRO家族蛋白的功能。因此，维生素D可能是开发新型CSCs相关肿瘤治疗方法的创新治疗方式之一。
