Concise Review: Emerging Role of CD44 in Cancer Stem Cells: A Promising Biomarker and Therapeutic Target

UNLABELLED: The reception and integration of the plethora of signals a cell receives from its microenvironment determines the cell's fate. CD44 functions as a receptor for hyaluronan and many other extracellular matrix components, as well as a cofactor for growth factors and cytokines, and thus, CD44 is a signaling platform that integrates cellular microenvironmental cues with growth factor and cytokine signals and transduces signals to membrane-associated cytoskeletal proteins or to the nucleus to regulate a variety of gene expression levels related to cell-matrix adhesion, cell migration, proliferation, differentiation, and survival. Accumulating evidence indicates that CD44, especially CD44v isoforms, are…

• AI
  American Institute for Cancer Research

  Award: 10A073
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Award: CA124523