Resumen
Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is a highly aggressive cancer responsible for about 85% of kidney cancers. The majority of the incidentally detected renal masses are small and confined to the kidney; however, a significant number of patients initially present with progressive metastatic cancer succumb to the disease in a short time frame. High levels of expression of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIF) resulting in the downstream epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) pathway and features of cancer stem cells (CSCs) leads to an aggressive and drug-resistant phenotype in ccRCC. In this paper, using data from in-house collected patient tumours and public domain datasets, we highlight EMT and CSC to be prominent players in ccRCC progression. Using these approaches of analysis, we show the development of multi-marker diagnostic and prognostic signatures, which may stratify high-risk patients likely to progress to metastatic disease.