Figure 1.

An overview of epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity (EMP). During epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), epithelial cells undergo phenotypic changes into mesenchymal phenotype, accompanied by the loss of cell–cell contacts and apical-basal polarity. Intermediate phenotypic states, between epithelial and completely mesenchymal states may coexist, resulting in mixed E/M features. EMT is a reversible process and the resulting mesenchymal cells can revert into an epithelial phenotype by mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET).