Petrescu Bianca Nausica, Babtan Anida-Maria, Soritau Olga, Buhate Dan, Ionel Anca, Feurdean Nicoleta Claudia, Bosca Adina Bianca, Câmpian Radu Septimiu and Ilea Aranka
Regardless of significant advances over the last years, cancer is still an aggressive and life-threatening disease with a negative impact on the patient’s quality of life, socioeconomic status and lifestyle. Finding a cure for cancer has become a major challenge for all researchers and medical professionals worldwide and enormous efforts have been made to find more effective prophylactic and therapeutic approaches. Nowadays, cancer treatment can be aggressive and it is not always well targeted. Therefore, more specific therapies should be focused on tumor cells and pathogenic mechanisms implicated in carcinogenesis. In this regard, our paper aims at discussing the interrelation between cancer stem cells (CSCs) and Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) with possible future research perspectives. CSCs are stem cells with tumorigenic properties that are capable to give rise to all the cell types found in a tumor. Development of innovative therapies targeted on CSCs could improve the survival rate and the quality of life for cancer patients. AGEs are a heterogeneous group of compounds formed by the non-enzymatic reaction between the reducing sugars and proteins, lipids or amino acids. Multiple sources of AGEs have been described, as well as AGEs involvement in numerous pathogenic pathways, carcinogenesis being one of them. In order to better understand the pathogenic mechanisms implicated in carcinogenesis and to develop efficient prophylactic and therapeutic approaches, the interrelation between CSCs and AGEs should be taken into consideration.
