Supervisor:
Program of Study:
MSc, Biochemistry
Project Title:
Uncovering Lysyl Oxidase as a Necessary Mediator of Mesenchymal-to-Epithelial Transition in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells
Lay Research Summary:
Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death in women and is closely linked with obesity. Obesity, characterized by large amounts of body fat, can speed up breast cancer progression which leads to increased risk of complications. Metastasis, when cancer cells spread throughout the body, is a common complication which is more likely in obese patients. The interactions between fat cells and breast cancer may help explain this increased risk of metastasis. To spread to new parts of the body, cancer cells from the original tumour can undergo a shape change. Cancer cells are normally round and love to stick together. When they break off from the original tumour and gain a starlike shape, they’re worse at sticking together and better at moving through the body. It is well known among researchers that fat cells have a major influence on this round-to-starlike transformation, increasing the likelihood that cancer cells leave the original tumour. However, the impact of fat cells on the reverse transformation is poorly understood. A starlike-to-round transformation occurs once cancer cells that have left the original tumour find a suitable place somewhere else to call home, forming a new tumour. Understanding the role fat cells play in this shape change may one day help produce therapies for those at risk of metastasis. We can grow fat cells and breast cancer cells together in a way that mimics a real tumour. This causes the cancer cells to undergo a starlike-to-round transformation. We believe a protein called Lox is being produced by fat cells and causing this change. We’ve proven that adding Lox by itself to cancer cells also causes the same shape change. My research is focused on preventing Lox from behaving normally, either by stopping the cell from making it or by inhibiting its function. If removing Lox from the equation causes cancer cells to no longer transform from starlike to round, then we will prove beyond a doubt that Lox is important in the interactions between fat and cancer cells. In the future, more research into how exactly Lox causes this effect may lead to new treatment targets.
Location:
Memorial University