Description
In 2006, T. Waerner, et al. characterized ILEI as a key player in both epithelial to mesenchymal transition and late-stage carcinoma progression. EMT is a process that involves changes in gene expression, cytoskeleton organization, cell adhesion, and extracellular matrix composition. This process is important during tissue formation and organogenesis, but also during cancer progression, metastasis and chronic inflammation. ILEI is overexpressed and/or altered in intracellular localization in multiple human tumors, an event strongly correlated to invasion/EMT, metastasis formation, and survival in human colon and breast cancer