Mesenchymal to epithelial transition in malignant mesenchymal tu-mors / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Mesenchymal to epithelial transition (MET), whereby mesenchymal cells become more epithelial like in phenotype, was observed to occur during normal development and in cancers. Numerous investigations have been conducted on MET in carcino-mas. In addition, accumulating evidence also suggests the critical function of MET in sarcomas. Integrated analyses reveal that MET may be an important biological and clinical process in sarcomas, and transcription factors such as Slug may also perform central func-tions in epithelial differentiation in several sarcomas such as leiomyo-sarcoma and synovial sarcoma. Given the scarcity of investiga-tions and evidence, several important issues about MET, such as its molecular markers, signaling mechanisms, micro RNA regulations, and clinical significance, need to be clarified. In this article, we review several important questions about MET in sarcomas, including molecular markers, signaling mechanisms, regulation by miRNAs, and therapeutic implications.