Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor Disease: Molecular and Cell Biological Aspects

At the beginning of the last century, the development of the Neuroendocrine Concept sparked intensive and worldwide research efforts leading to fascinating insights into the complex and diverse system of neuroendocrine cells and its importance in human physiology and disease. Recent developments in new and expanding research areas, including developmental biology, regulation of angiogenesis, cellular signaling and transcription, and impressive results obtained by application of genomics and proteomics warranted a reevaluation of the neuroendocrine concept. impact of the current understanding of neuroendocrine biology and pathobiology in these research areas. In particular, new discoveries are presented in neuroendocrine developmental biology with special emphasis on transcription factors controlling neuroendocrine differentiation of endodermal stem cells. controlling formation and proliferation of blood and lymphatic vessels and molecular determinants of hematogenous and lymphatic tumor dissemination. Given their central importance for the establishment and maintenance of the neuroendocrine phenotype, signal transduction cascades and their cellular targets related to the regulation of adhesion processes, receptor-mediated endocytosis, and cell cycle events as well as secretory activation and membrane trafficking are discussed in the context of neuroendocrine physiology and neuroendocrine tumor disease. Since many of the recent discoveries made in basic research can be directly linked to clinical applications, this volume summarizes and discusses innovative treatment and/or diagnostic approaches for neuroendocrine tumor disease.