Fibroblast Activation Protein-Alpha, a Serine Protease That Facilitates Metastasis by Modification of Diverse Microenvironments
Abstract
Our overarching hypothesis is that FAP functions with other proteases in an extracellular communication network to digest certain proteins, thereby exposing signals stored in peptide regions that enable breast cancer cells to thrive in diverse microenvironments. FAP likely has important functions in two parts of the metastatic cascade: 1) FAP and proteases such as MMP-1 and MMP-9 cooperate to produce fragments of ECM proteins during adjacent tissue remodeling and these derivative peptides promote fibroblast growth, ECM deposition and angiogenesis; 2) cancer cell membrane FAP cleaves precursive A2AP to generate the more effective derivative for protecting and stabilizing fibrin within ECM margins of the expanding neoplastic cell mass as well as fibrin within cancer cell/fibrin/platelet emboli that lead to hematogenous metastasis. We believe that peptides that target and inhibit FAP on FAP-expressing cells can be produced by taking advantage of the substrate/active-site binding specificity of FAP. This progress report documents the preparation of cell lines needed to complete the aims of the project as well as new discoveries of FAP suppression of DPPIV expression and a putative role for FAP in suppressing the innate immune response to breast cancer cells. Substantial progress has been made and has resulted in production of 2 abstracts presented at international meetings, and 4 grant proposals.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA535662
Entities
People
- Anna Mazur
- Avis E. Simms
- Thomas J. Kelly Jr.
- Yan Huang
Organizations
- University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences