Supervisor:
Program of Study:
PhD, Pathology
Project Title:
Identification of Oncogenic Plasminogen Receptors
Lay Research Summary:
Cancer remains the leading cause of death in Canada, and it’s estimated that two in five Canadians in their lifetime will develop cancer. When the cancer cells spread from their primary tumor to another location in the body (metastasize), it becomes harder to treat and leads to lower survival rates. This cancer cell movement requires molecules (proteases) that break down the tissue surrounding the tumor that normally prevents the cells from entering the bloodstream and spreading to other parts of the body. We have discovered that these cancer cells also release proteins (receptors) that increase the activity of these proteases. My objective is to expand the knowledge of receptors that help activate these proteases and determine how these receptors are regulated and contribute to the ability of the cancer cells to metastasize. So far, I have collected secreted proteins from cells grown in plastic, fractionated these proteins according to size and established that several of these fractions contain previously uncharacterized activators of the proteases. My efforts are focused on further purification and identification of these proteins to understand how they affect cancer spread and to detect if similar proteases are present in patient tumors. This research will provide new information and insights into the role of these proteins in cancer growth and spread. Identifying and validating these new proteins will have a meaningful impact on our understanding of cancer and identify new biomarkers that will ultimately lead to more targeted treatments and survival outcomes for patients.
Location:
Dalhousie University
Publications:
Okura, G.C., Bharadwaj, A.G., Waisman, D.M. Recent Advances in Molecular and Cellular Functions of S100A10. Biomolecules 2023, 13(10), 1450. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13101450
Bharadwaj, A.G., Okura, G.C., Woods, J.W., Allen, E.A., Miller, V.A., Kempster, E., Hancock, M.A., Gujar, S., Slibinskas, R., Waisman, D.M. Identification and characterization of calreticulin as a novel plasminogen receptor. Journal of Biological Chemistry 2024, 300(1), 105465. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2023.105465