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The impact of fusion genes on cancer stem cells and drug resistance

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Abstract

With ever increasing evidences on the role of fusion genes as the oncogenic protagonists in myriad cancers, it’s time to explore if fusion genes can be the next generational drug targets in meeting the current demands of higher drug efficacy. Eliminating cancer stem cells (CSC) has become the current focus; however, we have reached a standstill in drug development owing to the lack of effective strategies to eradicate CSC. We believe that fusion genes could be the novel targets to overcome this limitation. The intriguing feature of fusion genes is that it dominantly impacts every aspect of CSC including self-renewal, differentiation, lineage commitment, tumorigenicity and stemness. Given the clinical success of fusion gene-based drugs in hematological cancers, our attempt to target fusion genes in eradicating CSC can be rewarding. As fusion genes are expressed explicitly in cancer cells, eradicating CSC by targeting fusion genes provides yet an another advantage of negligible patient side effects since normal cells remain unaffected by the drug. We hereby delineate the latest evidences on how fusion genes regulate CSC and drug resistance.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the SRM Institute of Science and Technology for the infrastructure and fellowship to Mr. Saurav Panicker. The authors express their immense gratitude to Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and the Department of Biotechnology for the funding.

Funding

We would also like to thank the funding support provided to us from Science and Engineering Research Board, a statutory body of Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (EMR/2017/002874), and the Department of Biotechnology, (BT/PR26189/GET/119/226/2017) and SRM Institute of Science and Technology.

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  1. Department of Genetic Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, Kanchipuram, 603203, Tamil Nadu, India

    Saurav Panicker, Sivaramakrishnan Venkatabalasubramanian & Satish Ramalingam

  2. Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Chettinad Academy of Research and Education, Kelambakkam, Chennai, 603103, Tamil Nadu, India

    Surajit Pathak

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  1. Saurav Panicker
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Writing and idea conception, designing and revision: Satish Ramalingam. Writing and designing of the manuscript and interpreting the relevant literature: Saurav Panicker. Provided critical inputs and revising the review appropriately: Sivaramakrishnan Venkatabalasubramanian and Surajit Pathak.

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Panicker, S., Venkatabalasubramanian, S., Pathak, S. et al. The impact of fusion genes on cancer stem cells and drug resistance. Mol Cell Biochem 476, 3771–3783 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-021-04203-4

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