Resumen
Patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) experience shorter overall survival compared to non-TNBC patients because of the high incidence of recurrences and metastases. This is due to the capacity of aggressive cancer cell subpopulations named cancer stem cells (CSC) to resist current therapies. To design more effective therapeutic strategies for TNBC patients, in this study we sought to identify functional targets expressed on CSC. Our analyses led us to propose teneurin 4 (TENM4) as a promising candidate for drug- and immune-based therapies due to its role in CSC self-renewal and migratory capacity and the inverse correlation between its expression and survival of TNBC patients. In addition, TENM4 detection in the plasma of tumor-bearing patients endorses its potentiality as a disease detection marker.