Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
Department of Biotechnology, Central University of Kashmir, Ganderbal, India.
Phys Biol. 2022 Feb 7;19(2). doi: 10.1088/1478-3975/ac482c.
The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a biological phenomenon associated with explicit phenotypic and molecular changes in cellular traits. Unlike the earlier-held popular belief of it being a binary process, EMT is now thought of as a landscape including diverse hybrid E/M phenotypes manifested by varying degrees of the transition. These hybrid cells can co-express both epithelial and mesenchymal markers and/or functional traits, and can possess the property of collective cell migration, enhanced tumor-initiating ability, and immune/targeted therapy-evasive features, all of which are often associated with worse patient outcomes. These characteristics of the hybrid E/M cells have led to a surge in studies that map their biophysical and biochemical hallmarks that can be helpful in exploiting their therapeutic vulnerabilities. This review discusses recent advances made in investigating hybrid E/M phenotype(s) from diverse biophysical and biochemical aspects by integrating live cell-imaging, cellular morphology quantification and mathematical modeling, and highlights a set of questions that remain unanswered about the dynamics of hybrid E/M states.
上皮-间充质转化（EMT）是一种与细胞特征的明显表型和分子变化相关的生物学现象。与之前普遍认为的 EMT 是一个二元过程的观点不同，现在认为 EMT 是一个包括不同程度转化的多样化混合 E/M 表型的景观。这些混合细胞可以共同表达上皮和间充质标记物和/或功能特征，并且具有集体细胞迁移、增强肿瘤起始能力和免疫/靶向治疗逃避特征的特性，所有这些通常与患者预后较差相关。混合 E/M 细胞的这些特性导致了大量研究，这些研究绘制了它们的生物物理和生化特征图，这有助于利用它们的治疗弱点。本综述讨论了通过整合活细胞成像、细胞形态量化和数学建模，从不同的生物物理和生化方面研究混合 E/M 表型的最新进展，并强调了关于混合 E/M 状态动力学仍未解决的一系列问题。
