Cancers, Vol. 9, Pages 98: EMT/MET at the Crossroad of Stemness, Regeneration and Oncogenesis: The Ying-Yang Equilibrium Recapitulated in Cell Spheroids

Cancers, Vol. 9, Pages 98: EMT/MET at the Crossroad of Stemness, Regeneration and Oncogenesis: The Ying-Yang Equilibrium Recapitulated in Cell Spheroids Cancers doi: 10.3390/cancers9080098 Authors: Elvira Forte Isotta Chimenti Paolo Rosa Francesco Angelini Francesca Pagano Antonella Calogero Alessandro Giacomello Elisa Messina The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an essential trans-differentiation process, which plays a critical role in embryonic development, wound healing, tissue regeneration, organ fibrosis, and cancer progression. It is the fundamental mechanism by which epithelial cells lose many of their characteristics while acquiring features typical of mesenchymal cells, such as migratory capacity and invasiveness. Depending on the contest, EMT is complemented and balanced by the reverse process, the mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET). In the saving economy of the living organisms, the same (Ying-Yang) tool is integrated as a physiological strategy in embryonic development, as well as in the course of reparative or disease processes, prominently fibrosis, tumor invasion and metastasis. These mechanisms and their related signaling (e.g., TGF-β and BMPs) have been effectively studied in vitro by tissue-derived cell spheroids models. These three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems, whose phenotype has been shown to be strongly dependent on TGF-β-regulated EMT/MET processes, present the advantage of recapitulating in vitro th...
Source: Cancers - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research