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Promising roles of vitamin D receptor and APRO family proteins for the development of cancer stem cells targeted malignant tumor therapy

MOEKA NAKASHIMA, NAOKO SUGA, AKARI FUKUMOTO, SAYURI YOSHIKAWA, SATORU MATSUDA*

Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Nara Women’s University, Kita-Uoya Nishimachi, Nara, 630-8506, Japan

* Corresponding Author: SATORU MATSUDA. Email: email-wu.ac.jp

Oncology Research 2025, 33(5), 1007-1017. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2025.059657

Abstract

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.

Graphic Abstract

Promising roles of vitamin D receptor and APRO family proteins for the development of cancer stem cells targeted malignant tumor therapy

Keywords

Vitamin D; Cancer stem cell; Invasion; Metastasis; Chemoresistance; Ferroptosis; Tumor microenvironment; Noncoding RNAs; Cancer therapy

Cite This Article

APA Style
NAKASHIMA, M., SUGA, N., FUKUMOTO, A., YOSHIKAWA, S., MATSUDA, S. (2025). Promising roles of vitamin D receptor and APRO family proteins for the development of cancer stem cells targeted malignant tumor therapy. Oncology Research, 33(5), 1007–1017. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2025.059657
Vancouver Style
NAKASHIMA M, SUGA N, FUKUMOTO A, YOSHIKAWA S, MATSUDA S. Promising roles of vitamin D receptor and APRO family proteins for the development of cancer stem cells targeted malignant tumor therapy. Oncol Res. 2025;33(5):1007–1017. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2025.059657
IEEE Style
M. NAKASHIMA, N. SUGA, A. FUKUMOTO, S. YOSHIKAWA, and S. MATSUDA, “Promising roles of vitamin D receptor and APRO family proteins for the development of cancer stem cells targeted malignant tumor therapy,” Oncol. Res., vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 1007–1017, 2025. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2025.059657



cc Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Tech Science Press.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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