Epithelial-mesenchymal transition
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Overview
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a program of development of biological cells characterized by loss of cell adhesion, repression of E-cadherin expression, and increased cell mobility. EMT is essential for numerous developmental processes including mesoderm formation and neural tube formation.
Several signal transduction pathways, such as Ras-MAPK and Wnt, have been shown to be involved in regulation of EMT. In particular, Ras-MAPK has been shown to activate two related transcription factors known as Snail and Slug. Both of these proteins are transcriptional repressors of E-cadherin and their expression induces EMT.
Twist, another transcription factor, has also been shown to induce EMT, and is also implicated in the regulation of metastasis. Expression of FOXC2, an important player during embryonic development has been shown to induce EMT and regulate metastasis. Moreover, expression of FOXC2 is induced when epithelial cells undergo EMT by Snail, Twist, Goosecoid, and TGF-beta 1.
Initiation of metastasis involves invasion, which has many phenotypic similarities to EMT, including a loss of cell-cell adhesion mediated by E-cadherin repression and an increase in cell mobility.
EMT is a characteristic feature of cells undergoing proliferation. Cells expanding in-vitro, like beta cells- and epithelial phenotype, of the pancreas, assume mesenchymal phenotype.
Sources
- Vernon, A., and LaBonne, C. (2004). "Tumor metastasis: a new twist on epithelial-mesenchymal transitions". Current Biology 14. PMID 15341765.
- Yang, J., Mani, S., Donaher, J., Ramaswamy, S., Itzkyson, R., Come, C., Savagner, P., Gitelman, I., Richardson, A., and Weinberg, R. (2004). "Twist, a master regulator of morphogenesis, plays an essential role in tumor metastasis". Cell 117: 927-39. PMID 15210113..
- Sendurai A. Mani, Jing Yang, Mary Brooks, Gunda Schwaninger, Alicia Zhou, Naoyuki Miura, Jeffery L. Kutok, Kimberly Hartwell, Andrea L. Richardson, and Robert A. Weinberg (2007). "Mesenchyme Forkhead 1 (FOXC2) plays a key role in metastasis and is associated with aggressive basal-like breast cancers.". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (24): 10069-74. PMID 17537911.
Acknowledgement and Attribution Regarding Sources of Content
Some of the initial content on this page may be incorporated in part from copyleft sources in the public domain including wikis such as Wikipedia and AskDrWiki. Drug information for patients came from the The National Library of Medicine. Infectious disease information may have come from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Differential Diagnoses are drawn from clinicians as well as an amalgamation of 3 sources: 1.The Disease Database; 2. Kahan, Scott, Smith, Ellen G. In A Page: Signs and Symptoms. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2004:3; 3. Sailer, Christian, Wasner, Susanne. Differential Diagnosis Pocket. Hermosa Beach, CA: Borm Bruckmeir Publishing LLC, 2002:7 .
