Adhesion or anti-adhesion in cancer: what matters more?

Summary The regulation of adhesion processes between normal epithelial cells is an essential condition for the maintenance of appropriate tissular architecture and differentiation. Quantitative and qualitative alterations in these homotypic adhesions occur during the transformation of normal into malignant epithelium. How these complex alterations in various homotypic adhesions modify the ability of tumor cells to detach from the original neoplastic site, to grow and move as single or clumped cells, and to invade the stroma are current issues in tumor biology. This review contrasts tumor cell adhesion mediated by E-cadherin which is consistently decreased in carcinomas, with adhesion mediated by CD44 and CEA which are increased in the same tumors. A model proposing to resolve the apparent paradox of simultaneous adhesion and anti-adhesion mediated by the same protein is proposed.