Metastasis is the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumour to distant sites and organs throughout the body. It is the primary cause of cancer morbidity and mortality, and is estimated to account for 90% of cancer-related deaths. During the initial steps of the metastatic cascade, epithelial cancer cells undergo an epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), and as a result become migratory and invasive mesenchymal-like cells while acquiring cancer stem cell properties and therapy resistance. As EMT is involved in such a broad range of processes associated with malignant transformation, it has become an increasingly interesting target for the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Anti-EMT therapeutic strategies could potentially not only prevent the invasion and dissemination of cancer cells, and as such prevent the formation of metastatic lesions, but also attenuate cancer stemness and increase the effectiveness of more classical chemotherapeutics. In this review, we give an overview about the pros and cons of therapies targeting EMT and discuss some already existing candidate drug targets and high-throughput screening tools to identify novel anti-EMT compounds.

中文翻译：

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上皮间质转化 (EMT) 作为治疗靶点

转移是癌细胞从原发性肿瘤扩散到全身的远处部位和器官。它是癌症发病率和死亡率的主要原因，估计占癌症相关死亡的 90%。在转移级联的最初步骤中，上皮癌细胞经历上皮-间质转化 (EMT)，并因此成为迁移性和侵袭性间充质样细胞，同时获得癌症干细胞特性和治疗抗性。由于 EMT 涉及与恶性转化相关的如此广泛的过程，因此它已成为开发新治疗策略的一个越来越有趣的目标。抗 EMT 治疗策略不仅可以防止癌细胞的侵袭和传播，因此，可以防止转移性病变的形成，但也可以减弱癌症干性并提高更经典化疗药物的有效性。在这篇综述中，我们概述了针对 EMT 的疗法的优缺点，并讨论了一些已经存在的候选药物靶点和高通量筛选工具，以识别新的抗 EMT 化合物。