New Insights on the Regulation of the Cell Plasticity

A special issue of Biomolecules (ISSN 2218-273X). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 11572

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Ein Karem, 9112001 Jerusalem, Israel
Interests: cancer metabolism; tumor progression; EMT; STAT3 signaling

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Guest Editor
Oncology Institute of the Sheba Medical Center Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan, Israel
Interests: cancer cell plasticity; EMT; transdifferentiation; adipogenesis; patient-derived cancer organoids; TGF signaling; breast cancer; metastasis; BRCA

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cell plasticity describes the ability of cells to reversibly change their phenotype. Processes such as epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) enhance cellular plasticity in response to signals from the microenvironment. In development, this plasticity is essential for the proper formation of organs, whereas tumor cells hijack components of this machinery to survive hostile microenvironments and to undergo the cellular changes needed for migration, metastasis, and chemoresistance. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the regulatory mechanisms governing these changes may lead to both an improved conceptualization of cell biology as well as therapeutic strategies.  

This Special Issue aims to highlight the different layers of cell plasticity regulation. We encourage all researchers to present research tools, articles, and up-to-date reviews focusing on the regulation of cell state. The regulation mechanism includes metabolic processes, signal transduction, and any other cellular processes. We look forward to reading your contributions.

Dr. Yoav D. Shaul
Dr. Dana Ronen-Ishay
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Cell plasticity
  • Epithelial mesenchymal transition
  • EMT-TF
  • Cancer metabolism
  • Signal transduction

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 15097 KiB  
Article
Quantifying the Patterns of Metabolic Plasticity and Heterogeneity along the Epithelial–Hybrid–Mesenchymal Spectrum in Cancer
by Srinath Muralidharan, Sarthak Sahoo, Aryamaan Saha, Sanjay Chandran, Sauma Suvra Majumdar, Susmita Mandal, Herbert Levine and Mohit Kumar Jolly
Biomolecules 2022, 12(2), 297; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom12020297 - 12 Feb 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4742
Abstract
Cancer metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality and the process of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is crucial for cancer metastasis. Both partial and complete EMT have been reported to influence the metabolic plasticity of cancer cells in terms of switching among [...] Read more.
Cancer metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality and the process of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is crucial for cancer metastasis. Both partial and complete EMT have been reported to influence the metabolic plasticity of cancer cells in terms of switching among the oxidative phosphorylation, fatty acid oxidation and glycolysis pathways. However, a comprehensive analysis of these major metabolic pathways and their associations with EMT across different cancers is lacking. Here, we analyse more than 180 cancer cell datasets and show the diverse associations of these metabolic pathways with the EMT status of cancer cells. Our bulk data analysis shows that EMT generally positively correlates with glycolysis but negatively with oxidative phosphorylation and fatty acid metabolism. These correlations are also consistent at the level of their molecular master regulators, namely AMPK and HIF1α. Yet, these associations are shown to not be universal. The analysis of single-cell data for EMT induction shows dynamic changes along the different axes of metabolic pathways, consistent with general trends seen in bulk samples. Further, assessing the association of EMT and metabolic activity with patient survival shows that a higher extent of EMT and glycolysis predicts a worse prognosis in many cancers. Together, our results reveal the underlying patterns of metabolic plasticity and heterogeneity as cancer cells traverse through the epithelial–hybrid–mesenchymal spectrum of states. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights on the Regulation of the Cell Plasticity)
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21 pages, 4433 KiB  
Article
Transcriptomic-Based Quantification of the Epithelial-Hybrid-Mesenchymal Spectrum across Biological Contexts
by Susmita Mandal, Tanishq Tejaswi, Rohini Janivara, Syamanthak Srikrishnan, Pradipti Thakur, Sarthak Sahoo, Priyanka Chakraborty, Sukhwinder Singh Sohal, Herbert Levine, Jason T. George and Mohit Kumar Jolly
Biomolecules 2022, 12(1), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom12010029 - 25 Dec 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 6078
Abstract
Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) underlies embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis and fibrosis. Cancer cells exhibiting EMP often have more aggressive behavior, characterized by drug resistance, and tumor-initiating and immuno-evasive traits. Thus, the EMP status of cancer cells can be a critical indicator [...] Read more.
Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) underlies embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis and fibrosis. Cancer cells exhibiting EMP often have more aggressive behavior, characterized by drug resistance, and tumor-initiating and immuno-evasive traits. Thus, the EMP status of cancer cells can be a critical indicator of patient prognosis. Here, we compare three distinct transcriptomic-based metrics—each derived using a different gene list and algorithm—that quantify the EMP spectrum. Our results for over 80 cancer-related RNA-seq datasets reveal a high degree of concordance among these metrics in quantifying the extent of EMP. Moreover, each metric, despite being trained on cancer expression profiles, recapitulates the expected changes in EMP scores for non-cancer contexts such as lung fibrosis and cellular reprogramming into induced pluripotent stem cells. Thus, we offer a scoring platform to quantify the extent of EMP in vitro and in vivo for diverse biological applications including cancer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights on the Regulation of the Cell Plasticity)
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