Integrins and metastasis

Metastasis is a combination of biological events that makes the difference between cancer and other diseases. Metastasis requires flow of erroneous but precisely coordinated basic cellular activities like cell migration–invasion, cell survival–apoptosis, cell proliferation, etc. All of these processes require efficient regulation of cell attachment and detachment, which recruit integrin receptors in this flow of events. World literatures show several aspects of interrelation of integrins and metastasis. Integrin molecules are being used as prime target to battle metastasis. In this review we are collating the observations showing importance of integrin biology in regulation of metastasis and the strategies where integrin receptors are being used as targets to regulate metastasis.