Characterization of candidate genes influencing migration, invasion and metastasis in genetically generated oral-esophageal cancer cells

Introduction: The ability of a tumor cell to migrate across the extracellular matrix (ECM) is a prerequisite for metastasis. In our cellular model of human oral-esophageal carcinogenesis we were able to recapitulate tumor development in a stepwise fashion. Cyclin D1 overexpression and p53 inactivation led to immortalization, additional EGFR overexpression induced an in vitro transformed phenotype, whereas additional c-myc overexpression resulted in invasive cancer cells. To study the ability of these different cells to migrate, we analyzed the expression and localization of different candidates thought to be inv…