Our current study firstly revealed that Hes1 upregulation in a cohort of human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) biopsies is significantly associated with the EMT, invasive and metastatic phenotypes of cancer.
Here, we summarize the recent data supporting the idea that Hes1 may have an important function in the maintenance of cancer stem cells self-renewal, cancer metastasis, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process induction, as well as chemotherapy resistance, and conclude with the possible mechanisms by which Hes1 functions have their effect, as well as their crosstalk with other carcinogenic signaling pathways.
Notch signaling and HES1 expression have been linked to growth and survival in a variety of human cancer types and have been associated with increased metastasis and invasiveness in human osteosarcoma cell lines.
To test whether the HES1-derived NSCs can be used for cancer gene therapy, we used a baculoviral vector to introduce the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase suicide gene into the cells and demonstrated that baculovirus-mediated transgene expression may last for at least 3 weeks in NSCs.