Mjg. Bussemakers et Ja. Schalken, THE ROLE OF CELL-ADHESION MOLECULES AND PROTEASES IN TUMOR INVASION AND METASTASIS, World journal of urology, 14(3), 1996, pp. 151-156
Over the past 10 years it has become apparent that invasion and metast
asis are extremely complex processes; neoplastic cells must escape fro
m the primary tumor, degrade the extracellular matrix, migrate to dist
ant sites, arrest in the capillaries, and migrate through the basement
membrane and underlying connective tissue to the metastatic site. The
refore, tumor cells must exhibit considerable flexibility in their adh
esive interactions, and this is reflected in a complex and dynamic exp
ression pattern of cell adhesion molecules, proteases, protease inhibi
tors, motility factors, and growth factors. Despite the recent explosi
on of information regarding adhesion-related molecules, questions as t
o their possible roles in normal tissue architecture and as to how alt
erations in their expression or structure may be responsible for the p
rogression from a single malignant cell to a lethal metastatic disease
need further investigation. Moreover, efforts should be made to use t
he obtained knowledge to contribute to improvements in the clinical ma
nagement of cancer. In this review the different classes of cell adhes
ion molecules and proteases are summarized, with special emphasis bein
g placed on molecules that have been shown to correlate with invasion
and metastasis. Furthermore, the role of E-cadherin in cell adhesion a
nd invasive processes is discussed in more detail, since E-cadherin ma
y be considered promising as a candidate among cell-adhesion-regulatin
g molecules to be used as a biomarker for malignancy. We also elaborat
e on the role of the catenins, which associate with and are important
for the functioning of E-cadherin.