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Figure 6
A potential model of collective cell invasion. Small groups of cells high in canonical Wnt signaling break off from the primary tumor, invade surrounding tissue, and enter the blood stream. This cluster then extravisates from the blood stream homing onto to a chemokine source, such as CXCL12. The mechanisms of blood vessel intravisation and extravasation by cell clusters are not known (question marks). It has been speculated that behaviors of such clusters exhibit many similarities to leading front cells present in collective cell migration during embryogenesis. Adherens junctions are maintained throughout invasion process.