Posttranslational Modifications in Carcinogenesis and Cancer Therapy
Abstract:
Posttranslational modifications such as ubiuqitylation, methylation and ADP-ribosylation orchestrate genome stability, cell division, hormone-initiated signal transduction, apoptosis and tumorigenesis. Posttranslational modifications act as critical molecular switches or fine-tune operators that determine the activation, deactivation or subcellular localization of functional proteins. Research interests in my laboratory seek to address how defects in the ubiquitin-proteasome system (E3 ligase/deubiquitinase), protein methyltransferase and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) would result in genomic instability, abnormal cell cycle or apoptosis, and aberrant signal transductions (e.g., ER, TGF-, EGFR and Hippo) that predispose otherwise normal cells to become cancerous tumor cells. The ultimate objective is to integrate our basic research with clinical translational studies that would allow the development of new anti-cancer therapy thereby fully exploiting our knowledge of posttranslational modifications.