A sea urchin in vivo model to evaluate Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition.
Dev Growth Differ
; 59(3): 141-151, 2017 Apr.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28436008
ABSTRACT
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an evolutionarily conserved cellular program, which is a prerequisite for the metastatic cascade in carcinoma progression. Here, we evaluate the EMT process using the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus embryo. In sea urchin embryos, the earliest EMT event is related to the acquisition of a mesenchymal phenotype by the spiculogenetic primary mesenchyme cells (PMCs) and their migration into the blastocoel. We investigated the effect of inhibiting the epidermal growth factor (EGF) signaling pathway on this process, and we observed that mesenchyme cell differentiation was blocked. In order to extend and validate our studies, we investigated the migratory capability and the level of potential epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr) targets in a breast cancer cell line after EGF modulation. Altogether, our data highlight the sensitivity of the sea urchin embryo to anti-EMT drugs and pinpoint the sea urchin embryo as a valuable in vivo model system for studying EMT and the screening of anti-EMT candidates.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Sea Urchins
/
Embryo, Nonmammalian
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Dev Growth Differ
Year:
2017
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Italia