Grant: Project Grant

There are a number of cellular signals that stop adult cells from dividing. Over many years these signaling networks have been identified because their loss in mice leads to spontaneous cancer formation, and they are commonly mutated in human cancer patients. Many of these signals are "suicide triggers", which sit dormant until a cell may begin to divide. In healthy people, any cells that start to divide will be killed, protecting the organism from cancers. Some other signaling networks repress cues for cells to divide in the first place. The McBride lab has identified a completely new "tumor suppressor" called MAPL that acts at within the cellular "batteries", or fuel generators. Mice that lack this protein develop liver cancer, and preliminary analysis of human liver cancer also shows that about 30% of these human tumors have very little or no expression of this protein. This proposal aims to better understand the function of this new protein in cancer development.