ONCASYM - Cancer stem cells and asymmetric cell division (Life sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health) (2006-10-01 - 2009-09-30) (»add to infobox)

An intense line of current investigation in cancer is based on the connection between tumorigenesis and stem cell biology. Some tumors may originate from the transformation of normal stem cells at least in the case of blood, breast, skin, brain, spino-cerebellar and colon cancers. In addition, tumors may contain 'cancer stem cells', rare cells with indefinite potential for self-renewal, that drive tumorigenesis. Interestingly, the same signaling pathways (TGF-beta/BMP, Wnt and Notch pathways) appear to regulate self-renewal in stem cells and cancer cells. Self-renewal occurs through the asymmetric cell division of stem cells, which thereby generate a daughter stem cell and another daughter cell that contributes to populate the developing organ or the growing tumor. In the Drosophila nervous system, one of the best understood asymmetric cell division models, asymmetry is mediated by a biased Notch-dependent signaling event between the two daughter cells. ONCASYM Partners have recently showed i) that the process of biased signaling during asymmetric cell division is controlled by endocytosis and ii) that tumors can be induced in mutants with altered stem-cell asymmetric division. In human normal and cancer stem cells, asym. cell division is supposed to take place, but it has not directly been proved yet. Furthermore, the role of biased signaling by endocytosis in these stem cells has not been addressed to date. The aim of this proposal is 3-fold: i) to screen for genes involved in asymmetric cell division of human cancer stem cells, ii) to characterize the asym. cell division of these stem cells by using these candidate genes as markers and developing novel specific biosensors and iii) to functionally study the role of the identified candidate genes during asym. cell division of cancer stem cells. Our ultimate goal is to untangle the molecular machinery of cancer stem cell asymmetric division thereby providing drugable targets for cancer therapy.

COORDINATOR (1/1)

PARTICIPANTS (6/6)

RELATED THEMATIC AREAS (1/1)