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Sharon R. Pine
Assistant
Professor
UMDNJ-RWJMS
Dept. of Medicine
The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rm 3041
195 Little Albany Street
New Brunswick. NJ 08903-2681
(732) 235-9629
FAX -
pinesr@umdnj.edu |
Asymmetric cell division; self-renewal; Notch signaling pathway;
tumor-microenvironment interactions
When a stem/progenitor cell divides by asymmetric cell division, it gives
rise to two daughter cells with differing cell fates. One daughter remains a
stem/progenitor cell and the other is destined to differentiate. Asymmetric cell
division is a necessary process for both embryonic development and tissue
homeostasis. The process of asymmetric cell division becomes dysregulated during
carcinogenesis which may be responsible for excessive self renewal and tumor
growth. There is increasing evidence that polarity pathways play an important
role during tumor initiation and progression. One such pathway is Notch
signaling, which is known to regulate asymmetric cell division during tissue
homeostasis in many normal tissues. Notch is activated in several cancer types
and activation of Notch is associated with more aggressive tumors and poor
patient survival. This is an emerging field of research that holds promise for
identifying novel pathways in cancer development and progression, as well
compounds for novel cancer therapies.
Our recent work includes a focus on lung and breast cancer. We have developed
the tools to monitor asymmetric cell division in real-time. We are manipulating
the self-renewal and cell polarity pathways in cancer cells and examining how
their self-renewal and asymmetric cell division properties are changed. We are
also directly examining the effect of potential cancer stem cell-specific drugs
on survival and self-renewal of cancer stem cells.
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