Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 Aug;211(8):557-69.
doi: 10.1016/j.prp.2015.05.010. Epub 2015 May 28.

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition in colorectal cancer metastasis: A system review

Affiliations
Review

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition in colorectal cancer metastasis: A system review

Hui Cao et al. Pathol Res Pract. 2015 Aug.

Abstract

Tumor metastasis is a multi-step process by which tumor cells disseminate from their primary site and form secondary tumors at a distant site. And metastasis is the major cause of death in the vast majority of cancer patients. However, the mechanisms underlying each step remain obscure. In the past decade, a developmental program epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been increasingly recognized to play pivotal and intricate roles in promoting carcinoma invasion and metastasis. The EMT process is very complex and controlled by various families of transcriptional regulators through different signaling pathways. In this system review, we focus on the molecular network of the EMT program and its malignant phenotypes associated with metastasis in colorectal cancer (CRC), including cancer stem cells, tumor budding, circulating tumor cells and drug resistance. A better understanding of the molecular regulation of the dynamic EMT program during tumor metastasis will help to provide much-needed therapeutic interventions to target this program when treating metastatic CRC.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer; Epithelial–mesenchymal transition; Malignant phenotypes; Metastasis; Molecular related network.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

Cited by

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources