How important is EMT for cancer metastasis?

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a biological phenomenon of cellular plasticity initially reported in embryonic development, has been increasingly recognized for its importance in cancer progression and metastasis. Despite tremendous progress being made in the past 2 decades in our unders...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Toni Celià-Terrassa, Yibin Kang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2024-02-01
Series:PLoS Biology
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002487&type=printable
Description
Summary:Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a biological phenomenon of cellular plasticity initially reported in embryonic development, has been increasingly recognized for its importance in cancer progression and metastasis. Despite tremendous progress being made in the past 2 decades in our understanding of the molecular mechanism and functional importance of EMT in cancer, there are several mysteries around EMT that remain unresolved. In this Unsolved Mystery, we focus on the variety of EMT types in metastasis, cooperative and collective EMT behaviors, spatiotemporal characterization of EMT, and strategies of therapeutically targeting EMT. We also highlight new technical advances that will facilitate the efforts to elucidate the unsolved mysteries of EMT in metastasis.
ISSN:1544-9173
1545-7885