Guest Editors
Aamir Ahmad, Translational Research Institute, Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar. Email: Aahmad9@hamad.qa
Summary
Metastasis of primary tumors to distant organs is the major reason for cancer-associated mortality. Recent advancements have provided some mechanistic insights but the information is far from definite and the clinical management of patients remains dismal, thus underlying the need for more concerted efforts to better understand the process and identify and validate putative targets for therapy. A number of factors, including growth factors, chemokines, cytokines etc. have been linked with cancer metastasis, as also several non-coding RNAs, such as, microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, circular RNAs etc. Further, several cellular signaling pathways, transcription factors and the acquisition of cancer stem cells phenotype and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition also have a role to play in cancer metastasis. The characterization of in vivo metastasis models has helped evolve the field and the clinical evaluations of patients-derived samples have helped list many potential metastasis-related biomarkers. This special issue on Cancer Metastasis invites articles on all different aspects that define the complexity of the phenomenon and may contribute towards a better understanding of the subject and/or identify/validate targets for therapy.
Keywords
Cancer Metastasis; Cytokines; Growth factors; Non-coding RNAs; Cancer stem cells; Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; Biomarkers