Nodal Signaling Proteins: Reemergence in Cancer and Biological Role

Dear Colleagues,

Metastatic lesions that do not resemble the original primary cancer, or the recurrence of drug-resistent disease in patients that initially showed therapetic response are examples that point to the heterogeneous nature of cancer. This is further supported by the identification of stem cell-like cancer cells (CSCs) that presumably generate the diverse progeny that contribute to this heterogeneity. Thus, a great deal of effort has been devoted towards identifying specific stem cell markers for detecting CSCs. A more functional approach not only to identifying but also to better understanding the biological role of these CSCs is to study the re-emergence of embryonic signaling pathways in cancer. Nodal, a TGF-beta-related growth factor normally involved in embryonic development is reexpressed in different cancer types and shown to play a role during cancer cell growth and progression, transdifferentiation and drug resistance. The aim of this Special Issue is to highlight some of the key findings that support the contribution of Nodal and its signaling partners in cancer biology and how these have helped us to better understand the concept of tumor plasticity and heterogeneity and most importantly how these results may be exploitied for the future development of diagnostic assays and therapeutic targets.

Dr. Luigi Strizzi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomolecules is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Nodal
• signaling partners
• cancer
• pathogenesis
• diagnosis
• biomarker discovery
• targeted therapy
• host-anti-cancer immune response