Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Breast Cancer

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Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and distant site metastasis is the main cause of death in breast cancer patients. There is increasing evidence supporting the role of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in tumor cell progression, invasion, and metastasis. During the process of EMT, epithelial cancer cells acquire molecular alternations that facilitate the loss of epithelial features and gain of mesenchymal phenotype. Such transformation promotes cancer cell migration and invasion. Moreover, emerging evidence suggests that EMT is associated with the increased enrichment of cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) and these CSCs display mesenchymal characteristics that are resistant to chemotherapy and target therapy. However, the clinical relevance of EMT in human cancer is still under debate. This review will provide an overview of current evidence of EMT from studies using clinical human breast cancer tissues and its associated challenges.

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Most cited references 88

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Epithelial-mesenchymal transitions in development and disease.

Jean Paul Thiery, Hervé Acloque, Ruby Y J Huang … (2009)

The epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays crucial roles in the formation of the body plan and in the differentiation of multiple tissues and organs. EMT also contributes to tissue repair, but it can adversely cause organ fibrosis and promote carcinoma progression through a variety of mechanisms. EMT endows cells with migratory and invasive properties, induces stem cell properties, prevents apoptosis and senescence, and contributes to immunosuppression. Thus, the mesenchymal state is associated with the capacity of cells to migrate to distant organs and maintain stemness, allowing their subsequent differentiation into multiple cell types during development and the initiation of metastasis.

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Epithelial-mesenchymal transition in breast cancer relates to the basal-like phenotype.

David Sarrió, Socorro Maria Rodríguez-Pinilla, David Hardisson … (2008)

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is defined by the loss of epithelial characteristics and the acquisition of a mesenchymal phenotype. In carcinoma cells, EMT can be associated with increased aggressiveness, and invasive and metastatic potential. To assess the occurrence of EMT in human breast tumors, we conducted a tissue microarray-based immunohistochemical study in 479 invasive breast carcinomas and 12 carcinosarcomas using 28 different markers. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of the tumors and statistical analysis showed that up-regulation of EMT markers (vimentin, smooth-muscle-actin, N-cadherin, and cadherin-11) and overexpression of proteins involved in extracellular matrix remodeling and invasion (SPARC, laminin, and fascin), together with reduction of characteristic epithelial markers (E-cadherin and cytokeratins), preferentially occur in breast tumors with the "basal-like phenotype." Moreover, most breast carcinosarcomas also had a basal-like phenotype and showed expression of mesenchymal markers in their sarcomatous and epithelial components. To assess whether basal-like cells have intrinsic phenotypic plasticity for mesenchymal transition, we performed in vitro studies with the MCF10A cell line. In response to low cell density, MCF10A cells suffer spontaneous morphologic and phenotypic EMT-like changes, including cytoskeleton reorganization, vimentin and Slug up-regulation, cadherin switching, and diffuse cytosolic relocalization of the catenins. Moreover, these phenotypic changes are associated with modifications in the global genetic differentiation program characteristic of the EMT process. In summary, our data indicate that in breast tumors, EMT likely occurs within a specific genetic context, the basal phenotype, and suggests that this proclivity to mesenchymal transition may be related to the high aggressiveness and the characteristic metastatic spread of these tumors.

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The SLUG zinc-finger protein represses E-cadherin in breast cancer.

Karen M Hajra, David Chen, Eric R. Fearon (2002)

Loss of expression of the E-cadherin cell-cell adhesion molecule is important in carcinoma development and progression. Because previous data suggest that loss of E-cadherin expression in breast carcinoma may result from a dominant transcriptional repression pathway acting on the E-cadherin proximal promoter, we pursued studies of cis sequences and transcription factors regulating E-cadherin expression in breast cancer cells. E-box elements in the E-cadherin promoter were found to play a critical negative regulatory role in E-cadherin gene transcription in breast cancer cell lines lacking E-cadherin transcription. The E-box elements had a minimal role in E-cadherin transcription in breast cancer cell lines expressing E-cadherin. Two zinc-finger transcription factors known to bind E-box elements, SLUG and SNAIL, repressed E-cadherin-driven reporter gene constructs containing wild-type promoter sequences but not those with mutations in the E-box elements. Additionally, both SLUG and SNAIL repressed endogenous E-cadherin expression. These findings suggest SLUG and SNAIL are potential repressors of E-cadherin transcription in carcinomas lacking E-cadherin expression. Analysis of the expression patterns of SLUG, SNAIL, and E-cadherin in breast cancer cell lines demonstrated that expression of SLUG was strongly correlated with loss of E-cadherin transcripts. Taken together, the data indicate the E-box elements in the proximal E-cadherin promoter are critical in transcriptional repression of the E-cadherin gene, and SLUG is a likely in vivo repressor of E-cadherin in breast cancer.

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Contributors

Jane Grant-Kels: Role: Academic Editor

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Clin Med

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Clin Med

Journal ID (publisher-id): jcm

Title: Journal of Clinical Medicine

Publisher: MDPI

ISSN (Electronic): 2077-0383

Publication date (Electronic): 26 January 2016

Publication date Collection: February 2016

Volume: 5

Issue: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: 13

Affiliations

[1 ]Division of Cancer Research and Training, Department of Medicine, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA; mariannasarkissyan@ 123456cdrewu.edu (M.S.); jayvadgama@ 123456cdrewu.edu (J.V.)

[2 ]Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA

Author notes

[* ]Correspondence: yanyuanwu@ 123456cdrewu.edu ; Tel.: +1-323-563-9389

Article

Publisher ID: jcm-05-00013

DOI: 10.3390/jcm5020013

PMC ID: 4773769

PubMed ID: 26821054

SO-VID: 8fbb5e81-5015-4964-99e1-d41506c28b2f

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This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Breast Cancer

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Abstract

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Karger: Oncology

Most cited references 88

Epithelial-mesenchymal transitions in development and disease.

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition in breast cancer relates to the basal-like phenotype.

The SLUG zinc-finger protein represses E-cadherin in breast cancer.

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