| First Author | Fazilaty H | Year | 2019 |
| Journal | Nat Commun | Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | 5115 |
| PubMed ID | 31712603 | Mgi Jnum | J:281593 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6377916 | Doi | 10.1038/s41467-019-13091-8 |
| Citation | Fazilaty H, et al. (2019) A gene regulatory network to control EMT programs in development and disease. Nat Commun 10(1):5115 |
| abstractText | The Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) regulates cell plasticity during embryonic development and in disease. It is dynamically orchestrated by transcription factors (EMT-TFs), including Snail, Zeb, Twist and Prrx, all activated by TGF-beta among other signals. Here we find that Snail1 and Prrx1, which respectively associate with gain or loss of stem-like properties and with bad or good prognosis in cancer patients, are expressed in complementary patterns during vertebrate development and in cancer. We show that this complementarity is established through a feedback loop in which Snail1 directly represses Prrx1, and Prrx1, through direct activation of the miR-15 family, attenuates the expression of Snail1. We also describe how this gene regulatory network can establish a hierarchical temporal expression of Snail1 and Prrx1 during EMT and validate its existence in vitro and in vivo, providing a mechanism to switch and select different EMT programs with important implications in development and disease. |
