Individual carcinomas are composed of multiple, distinct subpopulations of neo-plastic cells that exhibit distinct biological properties. The cancer stem cell (CSC) model has been invoked to explain how these diverse cancer cell types are organized within a given tumor. According to this model, minority subpopulations of CSCs are endowed with the potential to drive cancer progression, holding the majority, if not all, of a carcinoma's tumor-initiating and metastatic potential, while the majority of neoplastic cells within such tumors, the non-CSCs, lack these traits.
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