CD44 and cancer: Furthermore, we sought to investigate the role of identified potential drug compounds on cancer stem-like CD44+ cells from the human colon carcinoma cell line HCT116 in order to explore the impact of drug based suppression of CD44v6 on molecular and functional characteristics such as anchorage independent growth potential, migration, expression of vital stemness and EMT markers, cell cycle regulation, induction of apoptotic and autophagic mechanisms and various downstream signaling pathways.