Neoplasia: Invasion and Metastasis Flashcards
Invasion is _______, while metastasis is ______.
cancer moving into adjacent tissue; cancer moving into distant tissue
What are the three ways cancer can disseminate?
Direct seeding, lymphatic drainage, and hematogenous spread
List the four stages of the metastatic cascade.
Invasion, intravasation, extravasation, and colonization
Invasion through ECM usually follows these typical landmarks: ________.
Loosening of tumor cell-cell interactions (E-cadherin), degradation of ECM, attachment to ECM components, and migration
Epithelial tumor cells (carcinomas) are held together with ______.
E-cadherins (which are connected to actin via Beta-catenin)
Tumor cells can traverse the basement membrane by ________.
degrading the ECM with MMPs or squeezing through (in amoeboid fashion)
What are the three types of cell movement?
Collective (when cells move together, as a sheet), mesenchymal (where single cells follow ECM), and amoeboid (where single cells squeeze through ECM)
Loss of ______ is associated with an invasive phenotype.
E-cadherin
When is the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition important in cancer progression?
Invasion
The majority of breast cancers are ______.
ductal
Anoikis is _______. Cancer cells are usually immune to this.
death by detachment (as in, an epithelial cell detaches from its sheet and dies when it floats in serum)
What are the two theories of tumor extravasation?
The seed-and-soil theory states that organ characteristics match the cancer cells’ needs, and the mechanical arrest theory states that cancer will extravasate wherever it stops.
Overexpression of _____ can lead to increased metastasis.
CD44 (a protein found in T lymphocytes)
When ____ is expressed, E-cadherin is repressed.
ZEB1
