Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a key step in transdifferentiation process in solid cancer development. Forthcoming evidence suggest that the stratified program transforms polarized, immotile epithelial cells to migratory mesenchymal cells associated with enhancement of breast cancer stemness, metastasis, and drug resistance. It involves primarily several signaling pathways, such as transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β), cadherin, notch, plasminogen activator protein inhibitor, urokinase plasminogen activator, and WNT/beta catenin pathways. However, current understanding on the crosstalk of multisignaling pathways and assemblies of key transcription factors remain to be explored. In this review, we focus on the crosstalk of signal transduction pathways linked to the current therapeutic and drug development strategies. We have also performed the computational modeling on indepth the structure and conformational dynamic studies of regulatory proteins and analyze molecular interactions with their associate factors to understand the complicated process of EMT in breast cancer progression and metastasis. Electrostatic potential surfaces have been analyzed that help in optimization of electrostatic interactions between the protein and its ligand. Therefore, understanding the biological implications underlying the EMT process through molecular biology with biocomputation and structural biology approaches will enable the development of new therapeutic strategies to sensitize tumors to conventional therapy and suppress their metastatic phenotype.
In this review, we spotlight all pre-existing integrin molecules, their structure, molecular interactions motifs, and function through several cross talks with kinase receptors. We also discuss the role of these integrins as potential prognostic and therapeutic targets and also in the regulation of breast cancer cells differentiation. Understanding of integrin structure and their motifs for ligand interactions in this context will enable the development of new therapeutic approaches to sensitize the tumors and their microenvironment to conventional therapy and overall suppress their metastatic phenotype.
K E Y W O R D Sbreast cancer, cross-talk signaling, integrins structure, metastasis, prognostic and therapeutic targets
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