Dear Colleagues,

Metastasis is the main contributor to cancer-related morbidity and mortality. Although the completion of the Human Genome Project and the technical advances in next-generation sequencing allowed for remarkable progress in understanding the genetic basis of numerous cancers, many questions remain unresolved. The extensive sequencing effort indicates that mutations themselves are not the causal factors in the determination of metastatic phenotypes. What are then the molecular events which drive the change from a primary tumor to a metastatic cell? The progressive gain or loss of genetic mutations and epigenetic marks can be, to varying degrees, involved in the individual steps of a metastatic cascade. This Special Issue focuses on deciphering their role and understanding their interactions in proliferation, invasion, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, migration, metastatic niche formation, tumor heterogeneity, and drug resistance. Moreover, the goal is to highlight the diverse capacities of the tumor microenvironment to induce both beneficial and adverse consequences for tumorigenesis. In this context, studies of disseminated tumor cells in the bone marrow and circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood would provide critical insight into cancer biology. Liquid biopsy assays, therefore, represent an important tool for the further elucidation of tumor heterogeneity through single-cell analyses, opening novel perspectives for personalized disease monitoring and tailored therapeutic approaches.

Since IJMS is a journal of molecular science, pure clinical studies will not be suitable; however, clinical submissions including biomolecular experiments focusing on the above-mentioned topics are welcomed.

Dr. Bozena Smolkova
Dr. Julie Earl
Dr. Agapi Kataki
Guest Editors

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• genetics
• epigenetics
• biomarkers
• cancer metastasis
• tumor cell invasion
• circulating cancer cells
• circulating tumor DNA
• epithelial–mesenchymal transition
• metastatic niche
• tumor microenvironment