Cancer: Tumor driver promoting EMT, metastasis and resistance to therapy
Cancer metastasis, which is the dissemination of tumor cells into distant organs, is the leading cause of mortality in cancer patients. To undergo metastasis, cells must leave the primary tumor, circulate into the blood, colonize distant organs, and form distant metastasis. It has been proposed that epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process in which epithelial cells detach from their neighboring cells, and acquire mesenchymal migrating properties, is important to initiate the metastatic cascade allowing the cancer cells to leave the primary tumor. However, the role of genetic mutations in promoting EMT is unknown.