Tumor patterning: analogies of neoplastic morphogenesis with embryogenesis

Patterning or pattern formation is a spatial and temporal process, by which ordered arrangements of cells and tissue structure are attained. The term is mostly applied to the morphogenesis in developmental biology, but it can also be useful for the neomorphogenesis in tumor biology. Despite increasing data on the proliferation and differentiation of tumor cells, processes of tumor patterning are rarely studied and poorly understood. A fundamental embryonic process of patterning is the gastrulation and a basic example of neoplastic patterning is the colonic adenoma-carcinoma sequence. Both processes exhibit distinct nuclear translocations and expressions of beta-catenin, which is considered to be a decisive transcriptional regulator. Our recent studies demonstrate striking analogies of patterning and nuclear beta-catenin expressions between the colonic adenoma-carcinoma sequence and the gastrulation steps. The shared patterns are dissociation, reassembly, tubular reconstruction and branching of neoplastic cells in association with nuclear beta-catenin expressions. These new findings establish patterning as a relevant concept for tumor biology and link the neoplastic morphogenesis with embryogenesis.