The Role of MEKK3 Signaling Pathway in the Resistance of Breast Cancer Cells to TNF- (alpha) -Mediated Apoptosis
Abstract
In the past year, I focused my research on testing the hypothesis is that NF-kB activation in breast cancer cells plays a critical role in cancer cells' resistance to anti-cancer drugs and to TNF-alpha treatment, and MEKK3 is an essential component of this process. I constructed expression vectors that express dominant negative forms of MEKK3 that will be used to block the MEKK3-down stream cascades. I tested their expression and activities in various cells and found that the transfection efficiency in breast cancer cells is very low as compared to other cell lines such as COS-1 and 293T. In order to utilize these constructs in breast cancer cell, it is necessary to make retroviral vectors. This work is currently in progress. The second part of my research involves assaying NF-kB activation since it is the key target of MEKK3. I tested the NF-kB reporter activation, IkBa degradation, and NF-xB DNA binding activity. Finally, I have been working on the siRNA technique so that we can use MEKK3 siRNA to inhibit the MEKK3 expression in breast cancer cells, and then test whether this will render the cancer cells sensitive to TNF-alpha and hopefully to other anti-cancer drugs as well.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA418337
Entities
People
- Qiaojia Huang
Organizations
- The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center