Introduction
- The cancer stem cell (CSC) possesses self-renewal and multilineage differentiation potential, and believed to be responsible for resistance to chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy [1].
- NANOG is a pluripotency transcription factor that serves as a signaling hub in maintaining CSCs [2-3].
- Full-length NANOG protein is encoded by two paralogs of gene, namely NANOG1 (generally referred as NANOG) and NANOGP8 [4].
- NANOG mediates immune evasion through NANOG/TCL1A/AKT and NANOG/LC3B/EGFR axes, contributing to immune resistant phenotype [5-7].
- This study aimed to clarify molecular characters relating to gene expression levels of NANOG and NANOGP8 in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).