title: EMT and EndMT: regulated in similar ways?
abstract: Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an evolutionary conserved developmental process, which is evoked during tumour invasion and metastasis. In the tumour microenvironment, a variety of resident and recruited cells participate in tumour progression. Kawata et al. demonstrated an experimental model where proinflammatory cytokines derived from macrophages could enhance EMT of cancer cells. Endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) is originally observed during heart development, and recent studies suggest its role in pathological settings such as cancer and fibrosis. Mihira et al. demonstrated a line of evidence showing endothelial cell plasticity to undergo EndMT in vitro. Both in EMT and EndMT, transforming growth factor-β played pivotal roles, and multiple downstream mechanisms were used, depending on cell context. These recent works unraveled discrete regulatory networks in mesenchymal transition of epithelial and endothelial cells.
authors.affiliation: Division for Health Service Promotion, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan. asaitou-tky@umin.ac.jp
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saito
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016207:Cytokines / Q000378:metabolism*; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D058750:Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition; D006801:Humans; D008264:Macrophages / Q000378:metabolism*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D051785:Smad Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000378:metabolism*; D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta / Q000378:metabolism*; D020741:rho GTP-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines; D051785:Smad Proteins; D015534:Trans-Activators; D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta; D020741:rho GTP-Binding Proteins
keywords: EMT; EndMT; TGF-β; cancer; fibroblast