Principal Investigator Robert Weinberg
Research has indicated that the act of inducing an EMT (epithelial-mesenchymal transition) in normal and neoplastic mammary epithelial cells results in cells that have acquired many of the attributes of stem cells. Included among these are the expression of cell-surface markers that enable the isolation of stem-cell-like cells. Research into the nature of the EMT-inducing signals (see above) is likely to shed light, as well, on the signals within a stem-cell niche that enable the formation of stem cells and their perpetuation in the stem-cell state. Moreover, by discovering the nature of the stem-cell-inducing signals, we may be able to convert differentiated epithelial cells into epithelial stem cells, which may have important implications for the regeneration of certain epithelial tissues. We believe that the EMT is induced by a group of collaborating signaling molecules. Accordingly, this research is exploring the identities of a variety of signaling proteins that function, in aggregate, to induce an EMT in cancer cells.