The endoplasmic reticulum may be an Achilles' heel of cancer cells that have undergone an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition

Yu-Xiong Feng; Ethan S Sokol; Piyush B Gupta

doi:10.4161/23723548.2014.961822

The endoplasmic reticulum may be an Achilles' heel of cancer cells that have undergone an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition

Mol Cell Oncol. 2014 Oct 29;1(2):e961822. doi: 10.4161/23723548.2014.961822. eCollection 2014 Apr-Jun.

Authors

Yu-Xiong Feng¹, Ethan S Sokol², Piyush B Gupta³

Affiliations

¹ Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research , 9 Cambridge Center ; Cambridge, MA USA.
² Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center; Cambridge, MA USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA.
³ Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center; Cambridge, MA USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA; Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Cambridge, MA USA; Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, MA USA; Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA USA.

Abstract

In a recent report published in Cancer Discovery we identified a novel vulnerability of cancer cells that have undergone an epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and established that the PERK branch of the unfolded protein response is constitutively activated upon EMT. In this commentary, we summarize and provide context for our findings.

Keywords: EMT; ER stress; UPR.