ArticleNature genetics2003
A molecular signature of metastasis in primary solid tumors.
Article in Nature genetics, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 956 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
956 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Prognostic and clinicopathological value of Slug protein expression in breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.World journal of surgical oncology · 2022Pooled it
- Prospective validation in epithelial tumors of a gene expression predictor of liver metastasis derived from uveal melanoma.Scientific reports · 2019Pooled it
- Differentially Expressed Genes in Matched Normal, Cancer, and Lymph Node Metastases Predict Clinical Outcomes in Patients With Breast Cancer.Applied immunohistochemistry & molecular morphology : AIMM · 2020Trial
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- Amplification of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A/B aids in immune infiltration regulation and breast cancer tumorigenesis.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2026Article
- High-Penetrance Rare Variants Underlying Familial Lung Cancer Risk: Insights From Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer Consortium.Journal of thoracic oncology : official publication of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer · 2026Article
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- Smooth Muscle Disruptive Feature Defines Molecular Subtyping, Risk Stratification, and Metastatic Potential in Prostate Cancer.Annals of surgical oncology · 2026Article
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- TensorFlow-based MobileNetV2 U-Net tumor segmentation and multiparametric MRI radiomics for predicting cervical lymph node metastasis in oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma.Therapeutic advances in medical oncology · 2026Article
- p53 inactivation drives breast cancer metastasis to the brain through SCD1 upregulation and increased fatty acid metabolism.Nature genetics · 2026Article
- Genomic Signatures Correlating With Adverse Pathologic Features in Men Eligible for Active Surveillance.The Prostate · 2025Article
- Investigating the role of UBASH3B in cancer: structural relevance, physiological functions, and therapeutic possibilities.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2025Review
- Integrating Primary and Metastatic scRNA-Seq and Bulk Data to Develop an Immune-Based Prognosis Signature for Colorectal Cancer.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Article
- Transcriptional patterns of cancer-related genes in primary and metastatic tumours revealed by machine learning.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Construction of a prostate adenocarcinoma molecular classification: integrating spatial transcriptomics with retrospective cohort validation.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Article
- FAM50A drives breast cancer brain metastasis through interaction with C9ORF78 to enhance ʟ-asparagine production.Science advances · 2025Article
- Molecular feature-based classification of retroperitoneal liposarcoma: a prospective cohort study.eLife · 2025Observational
896 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Metastasis is the principal event leading to death in individuals with cancer, yet its molecular basis is poorly understood. To explore the molecular differences between human primary tumors and metastases, we compared the gene-expression profiles of adenocarcinoma metastases of multiple tumor types to unmatched primary adenocarcinomas. We found a gene-expression signature that distinguished primary from metastatic adenocarcinomas. More notably, we found that a subset of primary tumors resembled metastatic tumors with respect to this gene-expression signature. We confirmed this finding by applying the expression signature to data on 279 primary solid tumors of diverse types. We found that solid tumors carrying the gene-expression signature were most likely to be associated with metastasis and poor clinical outcome (P < 0.03). These results suggest that the metastatic potential of human tumors is encoded in the bulk of a primary tumor, thus challenging the notion that metastases arise from rare cells within a primary tumor that have the ability to metastasize.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.