Cancer stem cells and epithelial–mesenchymal transition: Concepts and molecular links
By C. Scheel, R. Weinberg. Seminars in Cancer Biology, 2012
876 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) confers mesenchymal properties on epithelial cells and has been closely associated with the acquisition of aggressive traits by carcinoma cells. EMT programs are orchestrated by a set of pleiotropically acting transcription factors (TFs). The actions of these EMT-TFs enable the early steps of metastasis: local invasion and subsequent dissemination of carcinoma cells to distant sites. However, in most malignancies, the subsequent outgrowth of micrometastatic deposits into macroscopic metastases has the greatest impact on clinical progression. Such metastatic “colonization” reflects the ability of disseminated tumor cells to adapt to a foreign tissue microenvironment. The outgrowth of a metastasis is also thought to be associated with self-renewal, the defining cellular trait of cancer stem cells (CSCs), also termed tumor-initiating cells. Importantly, molecular links between EMTTFs and self-renewal have emerged, suggesting that EMT programs play critical roles both early and late in the metastatic cascade. The genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that regulate the activation of EMTTFs and the traits they induce are areas under intensive investigation. Such studies may provide new opportunities for therapeutic intervention and help to overcome tumor heterogeneity and therapeutic resistance.
Subfields: Molecular Biology, Oncology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/644a54dcce3be9614ddba6ff2706db1bf256ec0c
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In Molecular Biology
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- Randy L. Johnson
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In Oncology
- Raghu Kalluri
- Padmanee Sharma
- James P. Allison
- Randy L. Johnson
- Valerie M. Weaver
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Citations in the corpus
- Depletion of Carcinoma-Associated Fibroblasts and Fibrosis Induces Immunosuppression and Accelerates Pancreas Cancer with Diminished Survival (2014, positive): “YFP+ cancer cells from myofibroblast-depleted tumors exhibited an increase in their capacity to form spheres in culture, a feature of cells with EMT program and potential cancer stem cell-like phenotype (Kalluri and Weinberg, 2009; Scheel and Weinberg, 2012) (Figure 4F; Figure S4I).”
- Implications of the Hybrid Epithelial/Mesenchymal Phenotype in Metastasis (2015, result): “Similar findings in many carcinomas such as pancreatic, hepatocellular, and colorectal have strengthened this notion (133).”
- The two faces of Hippo: targeting the Hippo pathway for regenerative medicine and cancer treatment (2013, positive): “Other mechanisms likely contribute to YAP/TAZ-mediated drug resistance, including their ability to promote EMT and stem cell properties 171 , both of which are associated with increased resistance to chemotherapy in a variety of tumors and cell lines 172 .”
- Chromothripsis and kataegis induced by telomere crisis (2015, neutral): “Cell motility is well documented in wound healing and is promoted by the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cancers of epithelial origin (Scheel and Weinberg, 2012).”
- Spherical Cancer Models in Tumor Biology (2015, background): “Despite the emergence of the concept of “ migrating cancer stem cells ” [152] and the association between EMT and stemness properties [153], tumorospheres are not used in Matrigel assays for dissemination monitoring but rather for differentiation induction, so as to assess their capacity of…”