Roles of the HOX Proteins in Cancer Invasion and Metastasis.

Invasion and metastasis correspond to the foremost cause of cancer-related death, and the molecular networks behind these two processes are extremely complex and dependent on the intra- and extracellular conditions along with the prime of the premetastatic niche. Currently, several studies suggest an association between the levels of genes expression and cancer cell invasion and metastasis, which favour the formation of novel tumour masses. The deregulation of genes by HMGA2/TET1 signalling and the regulatory effect of noncoding RNAs generated by the loci can also promote invasion and metastasis, interfering with the expression of genes or other genes relevant to these processes. In this review, we present five molecular mechanisms of deregulation by which the clusters products may affect invasion and metastatic processes in solid tumours.