**9. ALDH1**

Aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 is a detoxifying enzyme involved in colon cancer proliferation [73]. Expressed in low percentage in normal colonic mucosa, ALDH1

**15**

**Author details**

Miana Gabriela Pop

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: miana\_my@yahoo.com

The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.

*Stem Cell Markers in Colon Cancer*

seen by Zhou et al. [74].

metastases formation [75–77].

overall survival [75, 76, 78].

prognosis.

**10. Conclusions**

**Conflict of interest**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84315*

was found to be overexpressed in colon adenocarcinoma [73, 74]. A number of 75.5–76.5% of colon cancer cases express ALDH1 at tumoral level [73, 74].

ALDH1 expression is associated with colon cancer location [73], with advanced stages of the disease [75], with number of lymph nodes involved (N) [73, 75, 76], and with perivenous invasion (V) [73] but also with local tumor recurrence [75]. The association between ALDH1 expression and lymph node involvement was not

Recently, ALDH1 expression was found to be involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and could play, thus, a role in cancer progression and distant

Moreover, ALDH1 associates with resistance to chemotherapy [75] and poor

Colon cancer stem cells (CCSCs) could be responsible for tumor metastases, resistance to chemotherapy, and recurrence, and their identification is thus of major importance. However, the amount of biomarkers identified at the cellular surface of CCSC failed to become valuable prognostic markers, and further studies are necessary to evaluate their role in cancer progression and distant metastases formation.

In conclusion, ALDH1 could represent a promising prognostic marker in colon cancer patients that associate with advanced colon cancer stages and worse overall

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

*Stem Cell Markers in Colon Cancer DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84315*

was found to be overexpressed in colon adenocarcinoma [73, 74]. A number of 75.5–76.5% of colon cancer cases express ALDH1 at tumoral level [73, 74].

ALDH1 expression is associated with colon cancer location [73], with advanced stages of the disease [75], with number of lymph nodes involved (N) [73, 75, 76], and with perivenous invasion (V) [73] but also with local tumor recurrence [75]. The association between ALDH1 expression and lymph node involvement was not seen by Zhou et al. [74].

Recently, ALDH1 expression was found to be involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and could play, thus, a role in cancer progression and distant metastases formation [75–77].

Moreover, ALDH1 associates with resistance to chemotherapy [75] and poor overall survival [75, 76, 78].

In conclusion, ALDH1 could represent a promising prognostic marker in colon cancer patients that associate with advanced colon cancer stages and worse overall prognosis.
