RESEARCH ARTICLE v a w

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBreast cancer, a neoplastic disease with high level of in-cidence and mortality, is the prevalent cancer in females [1, 2]. One reason for high rate of breast cancer, its meta-static potential and, in many cases, resistance to therapy, is the presence of tumour-initiating cells (TICs) [3, 4] that represent a small tumour subpopulation with the ability to self-renew and drive tumour growth [5, 6]. Recent re-search provides strong evidence for the contribution of TICs to tumour (re-) initiation and progression [7-12]. press tumour (re-) growth, perhaps even eliminating the pathology [13, 14]. Development of anti-TIC approaches is an emerging focus of research, and a group of com-pounds with anti-cancer properties acting by destabilising mitochondria, ‘mitocans’, appear to be efficient against TICs [15]. Mitocans define small compounds that induce apop-tosis of malignant cells via targeting mitochondria. They are classified into several categories according to their molecular target [16]. Mitocans from the vitamin E (VE) group, epitomised by α-tocopheryl succinate (α-TOS), * Correspondence