Fedele, M.; Cerchia, L.; Battista, S. Subtype Transdifferentiation in Human Cancer: The Power of Tissue Plasticity in Tumor Progression. Cells2024, 13, 350.
Fedele, M.; Cerchia, L.; Battista, S. Subtype Transdifferentiation in Human Cancer: The Power of Tissue Plasticity in Tumor Progression. Cells 2024, 13, 350.
Fedele, M.; Cerchia, L.; Battista, S. Subtype Transdifferentiation in Human Cancer: The Power of Tissue Plasticity in Tumor Progression. Cells2024, 13, 350.
Fedele, M.; Cerchia, L.; Battista, S. Subtype Transdifferentiation in Human Cancer: The Power of Tissue Plasticity in Tumor Progression. Cells 2024, 13, 350.
Abstract
The classification of tumors in subtypes, characterized by phenotypes determined by specific differentiation pathways, aids diagnosis and directs therapy towards targeted approaches. However, with the advent and explosion of next-generation sequencing, cancer phenotypes are turning out to be far more heterogenous than initially thought, and the classification is continually being updated to include more subtypes. Tumors are indeed highly dynamic and they can evolve and undergo various changes in their characteristics during disease progression. The picture becomes even more complex when tumor responds to a therapy. In all these cases, cancer cells acquire the ability to trans-differentiate, changing subtype, and adapt to changing microenvironments. These modifications affect the tumor's growth rate, invasiveness, response to treatment, and overall clinical behavior. Studying tumor subtype transitions is crucial for understanding tumor evolution, predicting disease outcomes, and developing personalized treatment strategies. We discuss this emerging hallmark of cancer and the molecular mechanisms involved at the crossroads between tumor cells and their microenvironment, focusing on four different human cancers in which tissue plasticity causes a subtype switch: breast cancer, prostate cancer, glioblastoma and pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Keywords
luminal to basal-like transition; neuroendocrine differentiation; proneural to mesenchymal transition; tissue trans-differentiation; breast cancer; prostate cancer; glioblastoma; pancreatic adenocarcinoma
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Pathology and Pathobiology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
