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The molecular basis of cancer metastasis: molecular mechanisms of epithelial-mesenchymal transition in tumor metastasis

Part 1 of 2
Published on April 30, 2023   30 min

Other Talks in the Series: The Molecular Basis of Cancer

Other Talks in the Series: Periodic Reports: Advances in Clinical Interventions and Research Platforms

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0:00
Hello everyone, Today, my lecture's title is The Molecular Basis of Cancer Metastasis. Let me first introduce myself. My name is Jing Yang. I'm a professor at the University of California San Diego, Department of Pharmacology and Pediatrics. My lab is at the Moores Cancer Center at UCSD.
0:22
First, I would like to introduce you to the outline of the lecture. I will first discuss the multi-step process of tumor metastasis. Then I will spend a significant amount of time to discuss this epithelial-mesenchymal transition and cellular plasticity in metastasis. Then we will talk about organ-tropic metastasis and how dysregulation in tropism is regulated. In the end, I will have a brief discussion on how to develop therapeutics to prevent or inhibit the development of metastasis.
0:59
As you all know, there has been a lot of work that has been done, trying to understand the molecular basis of primary tumor formation. But what's really killing cancer patients is actually metastasis. Metastasis is a multi-step process where a primary tumor cell set initially located in this primary site becomes locally invasive, invades through the basement membrane, and then makes it to the nearby tissue. Some of the tumor cells are able to intravasate into the circulation, enter the blood and lymphatic circulation. After surviving in the circulation, they are extravasated from the circulation into the distant organs. At the distant organ, some of the tumor cells are able to either adapt themselves to this new microenvironment or they actually modify this environment to make it much more friendly to themselves. That allows them to re-grow to forme the secondary growths that are eventually life-threatening to the patients. Major research efforts in the metastasis research is trying to understand the molecular and cellular programs that are activated to allow the stationary epithelial cells to have the ability to migrate, to invade, and eventually spread to a distant site.

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