image: Patients suffering from metastatic breast cancer (MBC) have poor prognosis. In the presented study, the role of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in the formation of lung metastases by tumor cells present in the blood and the bone marrow was studied. The results demonstrate that circulating tumor cells in the blood and the bone marrow, which have retained an epithelial phenotype, but have gained mesenchymal attributes through a partial EMT, are the major source of lung metastases in an animal model of MBC. Subsequently, these findings were validated in a cohort of patients suffering from breast cancer. Here, the expression the epithelial marker EpCAM was associated with metastases formation and poor clinical outcome. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the June 19th, 2019, issue of Science Advances, published by AAAS. The paper, by X. Liu at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich in Munich, Germany, and colleagues was titled, "Epithelial-type systemic breast carcinoma cells with a restricted mesenchymal transition are a major source of metastasis." view more
Credit: Olivier Gires with the assistance of Xiao Liu (Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany)