Epithelial-mesenchymal transition spectrum quantification and its efficacy in deciphering survival and drug responses of cancer patients
A partir de multiples bases de données portant sur l'expression de gènes dans des échantillons tumoraux prélevés sur des patients atteints d'un cancer de l'ovaire, du sein, de la vessie, du côlon-rectum ou de l'estomac, ainsi que sur des lignées cellulaires, cette étude évalue les performances d'une méthode de calcul d'un indicateur de transition épithélio-mésenchymateuse et analyse l'association de cet indicateur avec la survie des patients selon les types de cancer
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a reversible and dynamic process hypothesized to be co-opted by carcinoma during invasion and metastasis. Yet, there is still no quantitative measure to assess the interplay between EMT and cancer progression. Here, we derived a method for universal EMT scoring from cancer-specific transcriptomic EMT signatures of ovarian, breast, bladder, lung, colorectal and gastric cancers. We show that EMT scoring exhibits good correlation with previously published, cancer-specific EMT signatures. This universal and quantitative EMT scoring was used to establish an EMT spectrum across various cancers, with good correlation noted between cell lines and tumours. We show correlations between EMT and poorer disease-free survival in ovarian and colorectal, but not breast, carcinomas, despite previous notions. Importantly, we found distinct responses between epithelial- and mesenchymal-like ovarian cancers to therapeutic regimes administered with or without paclitaxel in vivo and demonstrated that mesenchymal-like tumours do not always show resistance to chemotherapy. EMT scoring is thus a promising, versatile tool for the objective and systematic investigation of EMT roles and dynamics in cancer progression, treatment response and survival.
EMBO Molecular Medicine , article en libre accès, 2013