Gastroenterology Division and Abramson Cancer Center, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Pancreatology. 2013 Mar-Apr;13(2):114-7. doi: 10.1016/j.pan.2013.01.004. Epub 2013 Jan 22.
An epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is thought to be an important process in the acquisition of capabilities required for metastasis. Until recently, studies of EMT involved mostly in vitro assays and transplantation experiments of cancer cells that overexpressed known EMT drivers. While valuable, these studies do not allow us to conclude if an EMT sustained under "physiologic conditions" within the tumor microenvironment leads to the myriad changes in phenotype observed in vitro. Here we review our recently published work using a lineage labeled genetically engineered mouse model of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma to characterize cells that have sustained an EMT in vivo.
上皮-间充质转化(EMT)被认为是获得转移所需能力的重要过程。直到最近,EMT 的研究主要涉及体外测定和过表达已知 EMT 驱动因子的癌细胞移植实验。虽然这些研究很有价值,但它们并不能让我们得出结论,即在肿瘤微环境中“生理条件”下持续存在的 EMT 是否会导致体外观察到的表型发生多种变化。在这里,我们回顾了我们最近使用谱系标记的胰腺导管腺癌基因工程小鼠模型发表的工作,以描述体内持续 EMT 的细胞。