The leading cause of death in cancer patients is metastasis. Invasion is an integral part of metastasis and is carried out by proteolytic structures called invadopodia at the cellular level. In this introductory review, we start by evaluating the definition of invadopodia. | Turkish Journal of Biology Turk J Biol (2014) 38: 740-747 © TÜBİTAK doi: Review Article Invadopodia: proteolytic feet of cancer cells 1 2, Gizem BATI , Devrim PESEN OKVUR * Graduate Program in Biotechnology and Bioengineering, İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, Turkey 2 Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, Turkey 1 Received: Accepted: Published Online: Printed: Abstract: The leading cause of death in cancer patients is metastasis. Invasion is an integral part of metastasis and is carried out by proteolytic structures called invadopodia at the cellular level. In this introductory review, we start by evaluating the definition of invadopodia. While presenting the upstream signaling events involved, we integrate current models on invadopodia. In addition, we discuss the significance of invadopodia in 2D and 3D and in vivo. We finally point out technical challenges and conclude with open questions in the field. Key words: Metastasis, invadopodia 1. Metastasis The leading cause of death in cancer patients is metastasis. Metastasis defines both the process of spreading of cancer cells from the primary tumor and the resulting secondary tumors. The primary tumor changes its place (meta + statis) and new tumors form at distant sites. During metastasis of carcinoma (cancer of epithelial tissue), tumor cells proliferate in an uncontrolled fashion, induce angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation), degrade the underlying basement membrane and penetrate into the connective tissue, migrate towards blood vessels, intravasate (enter blood vessels), survive in the blood circulation, extravasate (exit blood vessels), and form secondary tumors in distant organs (Figure 1A). Therefore, cancer metastasis is a disease of altered cell adhesion, motility, and invasion. 2. Definition of invadopodia Under physiological .
