Quantum Stem Cell in the Infinity Loop: A New Concept for Our Understanding of the Normal State and Cancer (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Cells in the stem cell compartment may be resistant to conventional therapies for cancer due to their differences in imprinting and gene expression as an adaption to survive in their unique hypoxic microenvironment. The genes that may have normally induced apoptosis in normoxic conditions may be silenced or other antiapoptotic genes may be over expressed. Apoptotic gene expression patterns should be characterized in cancer cell lines in hypoxia, compared to normoxia and compared to cancer stem cells. Given that the cells in the stem cell compartment have adaptively changed their imprinting pattern, they may be selectively susceptible to therapy including plasmid constructs with proapoptotic genes linked to specific promoters more active in these target cells. Better characterization of the metabolic pathways induced by various treatments in cells in the stem cell compartment could lead to new therapeutic strategies.