Human Gene Set: ANASTASSIOU_MULTICANCER_INVASIVENESS_SIGNATURE


Standard name ANASTASSIOU_MULTICANCER_INVASIVENESS_SIGNATURE
Systematic name M2572
Brief description Invasiveness signature resulting from cancer cell/microenvironment interaction.
Full description or abstract BACKGROUND: The biological mechanisms underlying cancer cell motility and invasiveness remain unclear, although it has been hypothesized that they involve some type of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). METHODS: We used xenograft models of human cancer cells in immunocompromised mice, profiling the harvested tumors separately with species-specific probes and computationally analyzing the results. RESULTS: Here we show that human cancer cells express in vivo a precise multi-cancer invasion-associated gene expression signature that prominently includes many EMT markers, among them the transcription factor Slug, fibronectin, and alpha-SMA. We found that human, but not mouse, cells express the signature and Slug is the only upregulated EMT-inducing transcription factor. The signature is also present in samples from many publicly available cancer gene expression datasets, suggesting that it is produced by the cancer cells themselves in multiple cancer types, including nonepithelial cancers such as neuroblastoma. Furthermore, we found that the presence of the signature in human xenografted cells was associated with a downregulation of adipocyte markers in the mouse tissue adjacent to the invasive tumor, suggesting that the signature is triggered by contextual microenvironmental interactions when the cancer cells encounter adipocytes, as previously reported. CONCLUSIONS: The known, precise and consistent gene composition of this cancer mesenchymal transition signature, particularly when combined with simultaneous analysis of the adjacent microenvironment, provides unique opportunities for shedding light on the underlying mechanisms of cancer invasiveness as well as identifying potential diagnostic markers and targets for metastasis-inhibiting therapeutics.
Collection C2: Curated
      CGP: Chemical and Genetic Perturbations
Source publication Pubmed 22208948   Authors: Anastassiou D,Rumjantseva V,Cheng W,Huang J,Canoll PD,Yamashiro DJ,Kandel JJ
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Source species Homo sapiens
Contributed by Dimitris Anastassiou (Columbia University)
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identifier namespace		 AFFY_HG_U133
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Version history 6.0: Renamed from ANASTASSIOU_CANCER_MESENCHYMAL_TRANSITION_SIGNATURE

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