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. 2015 Apr 14:4:14.
doi: 10.1186/s40169-015-0055-4. eCollection 2015.

Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition: a double-edged sword

Guislaine Barriere  1 , Pietro Fici  1 , Giulia Gallerani  1 , Francesco Fabbri  1 , Michel Rigaud  1
Affiliations

Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition: a double-edged sword

Guislaine Barriere et al. Clin Transl Med. .

Abstract

Epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a physiological process necessary to normal embryologic development. However in genesis of pathological situations, this transition can be perverted and signaling pathways have different regulations from those of normal physiology. In cancer invasion, such a mechanism leads to generation of circulating tumor cells. Epithelial cancer cells become motile mesenchymal cells able to shed from the primary tumor and enter in the blood circulation. This is the major part of the invasive way of cancer. EMT is also implicated in chronic diseases like fibrosis and particularly renal fibrosis. In adult organisms, healing is based on EMT which is beneficial to repair wounds even if it can sometimes exceed its goal and elicit fibrosis. In this review, we delineate the clinical significance of EMT in both physiological and pathological circumstances.

Keywords: Cancer; EMT; Embryogenesis; Fibrosis; Wound healing.

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