Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are heterogeneous, possess self-renewal attributes, and orchestrate important crosstalk in tumors. We propose that the CSC state represents “mimicry” by cancer cells that leads to phenotypic plasticity. CSC mimicry is suggested as CSCs can impersonate immune cells, vasculo-endothelia, or lymphangiogenic cells to support cancer growth. CSCs facilitate both paracrine and juxtracrine signaling to prime tumor-associated immune and stromal cells to adopt pro-tumoral phenotypes, driving therapeutic resistance. Here, we outline the ingenuity of CSCs’ mimicry in their quest to evade immune detection, which leads to immunotherapeutic resistance, and highlight CSC-mimicry-targeted therapeutic strategies for robust immunotherapy.

癌症干细胞（CSC）是异质的，具有自我更新属性，并在肿瘤中协调重要的串扰。我们认为 CSC 状态代表癌细胞的“模仿”，从而导致表型可塑性。 CSC 拟态被认为是因为 CSC 可以模仿免疫细胞、血管内皮细胞或淋巴管生成细胞来支持癌症生长。 CSC 促进旁分泌和近分泌信号传导，以启动肿瘤相关免疫细胞和基质细胞采取促肿瘤表型，从而驱动治疗耐药性。在这里，我们概述了 CSCs 模仿的独创性，以逃避免疫检测，从而导致免疫治疗耐药性，并强调以 CSC 模仿为目标的稳健免疫治疗的治疗策略。