Dynamic EMT: a multi‐tool for tumor progression

The process of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is fundamental for embryonic morphogenesis. Cells undergoing it lose epithelial characteristics and integrity, acquire mesenchymal features, and become motile. In cancer, this program is hijacked to confer essential changes in morphology and mot...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The EMBO journal Vol. 40; no. 18; pp. e108647 - n/a
Main Authors: Brabletz, Simone, Schuhwerk, Harald, Brabletz, Thomas, Stemmler, Marc P.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 15.09.2021
Springer Nature B.V
John Wiley and Sons Inc
Series:“Cancer Reviews 2021” series
Subjects:
Animals
Biomarkers
Cancer
cell plasticity
Cell Transformation, Neoplastic
Disease Progression
EMBO03
EMBO05
EMBO09
EMT
Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition - genetics
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
Humans
hybrid EMT
invasion
Mesenchyme
MET
metastasis
Microenvironments
Morphogenesis
Morphology
Neoplasms - etiology
Neoplasms - metabolism
Neoplasms - pathology
partial EMT
Review
Reviews
Signal Transduction
signaling pathways
SLUG
SNAIL
Therapeutic targets
Tumor Microenvironment - genetics
tumor stemness
Tumorigenicity
Tumors
TWIST
ZEB1
ZEB2
tumor stemness
EMT
SLUG
hybrid EMT
TWIST
ZEB2
ZEB1
signaling pathways
invasion
partial EMT
metastasis
cancer
cell plasticity
MET
SNAIL
ISSN:0261-4189, 1460-2075, 1460-2075
Online Access:Get full text
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Description
Summary:The process of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is fundamental for embryonic morphogenesis. Cells undergoing it lose epithelial characteristics and integrity, acquire mesenchymal features, and become motile. In cancer, this program is hijacked to confer essential changes in morphology and motility that fuel invasion. In addition, EMT is increasingly understood to orchestrate a large variety of complementary cancer features, such as tumor cell stemness, tumorigenicity, resistance to therapy and adaptation to changes in the microenvironment. In this review, we summarize recent findings related to these various classical and non‐classical functions, and introduce EMT as a true tumorigenic multi‐tool, involved in many aspects of cancer. We suggest that therapeutic targeting of the EMT process will—if acknowledging these complexities—be a possibility to concurrently interfere with tumor progression on many levels. Graphical Abstract This review contrasts classical and non‐classical roles of epithelial‐mesenchymal transition in diverse aspects of cancer cell biology.
Bibliography:This article is part of the
Cancer Reviews 2021 series
.
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This article is part of the Cancer Reviews 2021 series.
ISSN:0261-4189
1460-2075
1460-2075
DOI:10.15252/embj.2021108647