Journal
BIOCHIMICA ET BIOPHYSICA ACTA-BIOMEMBRANES
Volume 1863, Issue 3, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbamem.2020.183503
Keywords
Tight junction; Claudia; Cancer; Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a crucial step in cancer progression, with tight junction proteins playing important roles and their upregulated expression being associated with cancer cell EMT. Future research on the regulatory mechanisms of tight junctions during EMT in cancer cells may lead to the development of biomarkers for predicting prognosis and novel therapies.
The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an essential step in cancer progression. Epithelial cells possess several types of cell-cell junctions, and tight junctions are known to play important roles in maintaining the epithelial program. EMT is characterized by a loss of epithelial markers, including E-cadherin and tight junction proteins. Somewhat surprisingly, the evidence is accumulating that upregulated expression of tight junction proteins plays an important role in the EMT of cancer cells. Tight junctions have distinct tissue-specific and cancer-specific regulatory mechanisms, enabling them to play different roles in EMT. Tight junctions and related signaling pathways are attractive targets for cancer treatments; signal transduction inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies for tight junction proteins may be used to suppress EMT, invasion, and metastasis. Here we review the role of bicellular and tricellular tight junction proteins during EMT. Further investigation of regulatory mechanisms of tight junctions during EMT in cancer cells will inform the development of biomarkers for predicting prognosis as well as novel therapies.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available