EMT and EndMT: regulated in similar ways?

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an evolutionary conserved developmental process, which is evoked during tumour invasion and metastasis. In the tumour microenvironment, a variety of resident and recruited cells participate in tumour progression. Kawata et al. demonstrated an experimental model where proinflammatory cytokines derived from macrophages could enhance EMT of cancer cells. Endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) is originally observed during heart development, and recent studies suggest its role in pathological settings such as cancer and fibrosis. Mihira et al. demonstrated a line of evidence showing endothelial cell plasticity to undergo EndMT in vitro. Both in EMT and EndMT, transforming growth factor-β played pivotal roles, and multiple downstream mechanisms were used, depending on cell context. These recent works unraveled discrete regulatory networks in mesenchymal transition of epithelial and endothelial cells.