Pancreatic neoplasm

especially pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tends to be with bad prognosis due to higher grade malignancy and metastasis. Formerly researches suggested that cancer stem cells play an important part in the initiation and process of pancreatic cancer

so that

well understanding on the mechanism of pathogenesis will contribute to a direct treatment on it. Complex signal pathways and transcription factors determined the differentiation of precursor cells during the development of pancreas

whereas

also involved in pancreatic malignant changes

which could be used as markers tracking cancer stem cells. Moreover

several special proteins were also employed as tools for pancreatic cancer stem cells screening. In this text

we reviewed origination and identification of pancreatic cancer stem cells

as well as targeted therapy.