Grant: Project Grant

The majority of solid cancers in adults originate from cells known as epithelial cells. Normally, these epithelial cells are confined to specific places in the body. Cancerous changes cause these cells to divide, form a tumor and metastasize to other sites. Our understanding of how cells acquire these aggressive properties is not fully understood. Interestingly, some of these aggressive cellular changes happen during our normal development, but are efficiently shut down upon maturity. For example, breast epithelial cells migrate great distances during puberty to eventually form a glandular organ in the adult. We identified a protein named BAD that enables this migration of breast cells only during puberty. A control switch for BAD is its phosphorylation state. By preventing BAD phosphorylation, we blocked this cell migration. We propose to understand how BAD is regulated through phosphorylation. This will identify potential drug targets that may be of use in blocking cell migration. We also plan to understand how BAD contributes to cell migration. This will identify important new biology that may also be incorrectly activated in cancer. Results from our work may help us propose ways to block cell migration and possibly cancer metastasis.