The effect of salinomycin on ovarian cancer stem-like cells.

The present study is a detailed investigation on the expression of CD44 and CD117 in cancer stem cells and evaluates their specific tumorigenic characteristics in ovarian cancer. This study also demonstrates significant growth inhibition of cancer stem-like cells by paclitaxel combined with salinomycin. Identification of these cancer stem-like cell markers and growth inhibition effect of salinomycin may be the next step to the development of novel target therapy in ovarian cancer.