Epithelial-mesenchymal transition and circulating tumor cells / 肿瘤

ABSTRACT

Currently, it is considered that the tumor cells get abnormal activity by EMT (epithelial-mesenchymal transition) activation, inducing the generation and survival of CTCs (circulating tumor cells). After dissemination of CTCs through the blood, MET (mesenchymal-epithelial transition) occurs to form secondary tumor metastasis. Given that EMT is a key factor to induce CTCs to promote tumor metastasis, more and more attention was paid on CTCs in prognosis and targeted therapy of tumors. This review is mainly involved the current progress in the role of EMT in generation and survival of CTCs and the role of MET in metastasis formation from EMT-derived CTCs, and discusses the problem of the clinical application of detection of CTCs-EMT phenotype. Copyright © 2013 by TUMOR.