Comment on “Identification of EMT-related high-risk stage II colorectal cancer and characterisation of metastasis-related genes”

We read with interest the publication by Wang et al., 1 which describes the development, testing and validation of an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related transcriptional classifier to identify patients with stage II colorectal cancer (CRC) at risk of disease relapse. Transcriptional characterisation of tumours classified as high risk using their approach, as anticipated, demonstrates a significant enrichment for gene sets associated with EMT. The authors conclude that their EMT signature identifies tumours with significantly elevated levels of epithelial transition, and that this transitional phenotype plays a more important role than the tumour microenvironment (TME) in driving the aggressive biology underpinning disease relapse. While we do not challenge the prognostic value of the classifier developed in this study, we do urge caution to the authors and across the field when utilising and interpreting such EMT-related signatures.