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Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Modeling Oral-Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in 3D Organoids
Published on: December 23, 2022
Aberrant epithelial cell interaction promotes esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma development and progression
Liping Chen1, Shihao Zhu1, Tianyuan Liu1
1Department of Etiology and Carcinogenesis, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100021, China.
Abstract:
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and proliferation play important roles in epithelial cancer formation and progression, but what molecules and how they trigger EMT is largely unknown. Here we performed spatial transcriptomic and functional analyses on samples of multistage esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma (ESCC) from mice and humans to decipher these critical issues. By investigating spatiotemporal gene expression patterns and cell-cell interactions, we demonstrated that the aberrant epithelial cell interaction via EFNB1-EPHB4 triggers EMT and cell cycle mediated by downstream SRC/ERK/AKT signaling. The aberrant epithelial cell interaction occurs within the basal layer at early precancerous lesions, which expands to the whole epithelial layer and strengthens along the cancer development and progression. Functional analysis revealed that the aberrant EFNB1-EPHB4 interaction is caused by overexpressed ΔNP63 due to TP53 mutation, the culprit in human ESCC tumorigenesis. Our results shed new light on the role of TP53-TP63/ΔNP63-EFNB1-EPHB4 axis in EMT and cell proliferation in epithelial cancer formation.
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