癌症转移分子机制概论

摘要

Metastasis is the leading cause of tumor related death. Mostly, people think that tumor metastasis undergo an epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) to get stem cell-like phenotype. However, why subsequent metastases undergo mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) process? Is MET essential to metastasis? Here, we briefly review two principle types of metastatic progression:plasticity type and genetic type, which are account for chemoresistance, metastatic tropism and dor-mancy, and imply perspectives on treatment strategies against tumor metastasis.%癌症造成的死亡90%是由转移引起的，通常人们认为癌症的转移经历上皮-间充质转化(EMT)使其获得干细胞样特性，从而使干细胞概念和EMT联系起来。但是转移灶为什么又经历间充质-上皮转化（MET）过程？MET对转移是必须的吗？在这里，我们阐述两种重要的癌症转移机制：可塑型和基因型。这两种模型能解释临床有关癌症治疗耐药、转移倾向、休眠等问题，为临床攻克癌症提供理论基础。