Burger Gerhard A, Danen Erik H J, Beltman Joost B
Drug Discovery and Safety, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands.
Front Oncol. 2017 Aug 3;7:162. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2017.00162. eCollection 2017.
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), the process by which epithelial cells can convert into motile mesenchymal cells, plays an important role in development and wound healing but is also involved in cancer progression. It is increasingly recognized that EMT is a dynamic process involving multiple intermediate or "hybrid" phenotypes rather than an "all-or-none" process. However, the role of EMT in various cancer hallmarks, including metastasis, is debated. Given the complexity of EMT regulation, computational modeling has proven to be an invaluable tool for cancer research, i.e., to resolve apparent conflicts in experimental data and to guide experiments by generating testable hypotheses. In this review, we provide an overview of computational modeling efforts that have been applied to regulation of EMT in the context of cancer progression and its associated tumor characteristics. Moreover, we identify possibilities to bridge different modeling approaches and point out outstanding questions in which computational modeling can contribute to advance our understanding of pathological EMT.
上皮-间质转化（EMT）是上皮细胞转化为具有运动能力的间质细胞的过程，在发育和伤口愈合中起重要作用，但也与癌症进展有关。人们越来越认识到，EMT是一个动态过程，涉及多种中间或“混合”表型，而不是一个“全或无”的过程。然而，EMT在包括转移在内的各种癌症特征中的作用仍存在争议。鉴于EMT调控的复杂性，计算建模已被证明是癌症研究中一种非常有价值的工具，即解决实验数据中明显的冲突，并通过生成可检验的假设来指导实验。在这篇综述中，我们概述了在癌症进展及其相关肿瘤特征的背景下，应用于EMT调控的计算建模工作。此外，我们确定了连接不同建模方法的可能性，并指出了计算建模可以有助于推进我们对病理性EMT理解的突出问题。
