CDH2 and cancer: In tumor cells, local cancer epithelial cells take over the evolutionarily conserved EMT process to lose their polarity and cell-cell contact while undergoing a dramatic cytoskeletal remodeling to acquire an invasive, well-defined mesenchymal phenotype [80], including the common loss of E-cadherin and overexpression of mesenchymal proteins (N-cadherin, vimentin, and fibronectin) [79,81].