Project description:The JNK pathway has been implicated in breast cancer, both from human tumor sequencing studies and from mouse models. To see if JNK deletion is able to form tumors in mice, we crossed Mapk8 and Mapk9 conditional animals with the WAP-Cre expressing mouse to specifically delete JNK in luminal epithelial cells of the breast. We found that JNK suppresses tumors and that the loss of JNK leads to adenosquamous carcinoma formation. To understand the role of JNK in the mammary epithelium, we performed RNA sequencing and analyzed gene expression from tumor-derived cell lines. Several pathways were perturbed in the carcinoma cell lines. Our results demonstrate that loss of JNK alone is sufficient to cause tumor formation and they reveal a gene signature of adenosquamous tumors that can help in better understanding and treating the disease.
Project description:We found that BAP1 (BRCA1 Associated Protein-1) shows loss of heterozygosity in over 25% of pancreatic cancer patients and functions as tumor suppressor. Conditional deletion of Bap1 in murine pancreas led to genomic instability, accumulation of DNA damage, and an inflammatory response that evolved to pancreatitis with full penetrance. Concomitant expression of oncogenic KrasG12D led to malignant transformation and development of invasive and metastatic pancreatic cancer. At the molecular level, BAP1 maintains the integrity of the exocrine pancreas by regulating genomic stability and its loss confers sensitivity to radio- and platinum-based therapies.
