Publications

Tissue-resident memory T cells orchestrate tumour-immune equilibrium

April 26, 2019

EPICUTANEOUS MELANOMA INOCULATION: A MODEL OF TUMOUR-IMMUNE EQUILIBRIUM In order to study immune responses to skin cancer, B16 melanoma cells have traditionally been grafted to mice via intradermal or subcutaneous

The targeting of tumor-associated macrophages by vaccination

April 24, 2019

Immune suppressive myeloid cells include a heterogenous population of cells that include tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). TAMs are major players in inducing the immunosuppressive microenvironment associated with many tumors. These lesions

Constitutional Mosaic Epimutations – a hidden cause of cancer?

March 25, 2019

Silencing of tumor suppressor genes by promoter hypermethylation is a key mechanism to facilitate cancer progression in many malignancies. While promoter hypermethylation can occur at later stages of the carcinogenesis process, constitutional methylation of key tumor suppressors may be an initiating event whereby cancer is started. Constitutional BRCA1 methylation due to cis-acting germline genetic variants is associated with a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. However, this seems to be a rare event, restricted to a very limited number of families. In contrast, mosaic constitutional BRCA1 methylation is detected in 4-7% of newborn females without germline BRCA1 mutations. While the cause of such methylation is poorly understood, mosaic normal tissue BRCA1 methylation is associated with a 2-3 fold increased risk of high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). As such, BRCA1 methylation may be the cause of a significant number of ovarian cancers. Given the molecular similarities between HGSOC and basal-like breast cancer, the (...)

The role of keratins in modulating carcinogenesis via communication with cells of the immune system

March 25, 2019

The connection between inflammation and cancer has been well established; however, little is known about the underlying mechanisms in the context of keratin loss. Keratins belong to a large family

Mitochondrial stress delays tumorigenesis in a Li-Fraumeni syndrome mouse model

March 21, 2019

As a prominent hub of metabolic activity, the mitochondrion can initiate retrograde signaling in response to bioenergetic stress that is important for various adaptive changes including cell cycle regulation [1][2].

Mitochondria organize the cellular proteostatic response and promote cellular senescence

March 15, 2019

Timely disposal and degradation of misfolded proteins and their aggregates is critical for cellular proteostasis and the well-being of a cell. During evolution, cells have acquired a sophisticated system to

The primary cilium protein folliculin is part of the autophagy signaling pathway to regulate epithelial cell size in response to fluid flow

February 25, 2019

Autophagy is a conserved molecular pathway directly involved in the degradation and recycling of intracellular components. Autophagy is associated with a response to stress situations, such as nutrients deficit, chemical toxicity, mechanical stress or microbial host defense. We have recently shown that primary cilium-dependent autophagy is important to control kidney epithelial cell size in response to fluid flow induced shear stress. Here we show that the ciliary protein folliculin (FLCN) actively participates to the signaling cascade leading to the stimulation of fluid flow-dependent autophagy upstream of the cell size regulation in HK2 kidney epithelial cells. The knockdown of FLCN induces a shortening of the primary cilium, inhibits the activation of AMPK and the recruitment of the autophagy protein ATG16L1 at the primary cilium. Altogether, our results suggest that FLCN (...)

Previous Next