A wound-healing program is hijacked to promote cancer metastasis

Mechanisms of wound healing and therapeutic interventions linked to metastatic tumor progression. Key signaling pathways implicated in the wound-healing response and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) are shown at left. In response to wounding, upstream signals inhibit miR-198 processing and coordinately promote FSTL1 expression. Deregulation of these upstream signals disrupts this homeostatic mechanism and, together with related pathways (e.g., FGFR), promotes metastatic progression in HNSCC and other cancers. Shown in grey boxes are ongoing pharmacologic approaches to inhibit these pathways in human cancer.