Ricerc@Sapienza

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a reversible cellular program that allows the phenotypic transition of epithelial cells to mesenchymal ones. EMT is essential to the formation of many tissues and organs during development, but it has also been shown to occur in wound healing, in organ fibrosis and the initiation of metastasis for cancer progression. Accumulating evidence points to a critical role of EMT-like events during tumor progression and malignant transformation, endowing the incipient cancer cell with invasive and metastatic properties. Gene expression patterns identified in human cancers indicate that de-differentiated cancer cells combine EMT properties with a stem-cell like phenotype through the expression of specific transcription factors, including the
Snail family, Twist and Zeb, which can co-induce EMT and stemness properties. Some studies evidenced the expression of EMT biomarkers in both differentiated and undifferentiated thyroid carcinomas, and EMT was shown to induce generation of cancer stem cells (CSCs) and tumor progression in human thyroid cancer cells in vitro. On this basis, the present research proposal is aimed to investigate the expression levels of the zinc finger transcriptional repressors Snail1 and Snail2, the basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors Twist1, and the zinc finger transcription factors Zeb-1 and Zeb-2 in differentiated thyroid carcinomas and their normal matched tissues. In presence of gene expression alterations, the expression level of the above genes will be correlated with patient¿s clinico-pathological parameters and disease recurrences to establish their possible prognostic value.