The epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity landscape: principles of design and mechanisms of regulation
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Updated: Jul 30, 2025

Induction of Mesenchymal-Epithelial Transitions in Sarcoma Cells
Published on: April 7, 2017
Jef Haerinck1,2, Steven Goossens2,3, Geert Berx4,5
1Molecular and Cellular Oncology Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Abstract:
Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) enables cells to interconvert between several states across the epithelial-mesenchymal landscape, thereby acquiring hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal phenotypic features. This plasticity is crucial for embryonic development and wound healing, but also underlies the acquisition of several malignant traits during cancer progression. Recent research using systems biology and single-cell profiling methods has provided novel insights into the main forces that shape EMP, which include the microenvironment, lineage specification and cell identity, and the genome. Additionally, key roles have emerged for hysteresis (cell memory) and cellular noise, which can drive stochastic transitions between cell states. Here, we review these forces and the distinct but interwoven layers of regulatory control that stabilize EMP states or facilitate epithelial-mesenchymal transitions (EMTs) and discuss the therapeutic potential of manipulating the EMP landscape.
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