Research Summary

Cancer cells in distant organs (disseminated tumor cells, or DTCs in short) can remain dormant for years before becoming active and causing a lethal metastatic disease. This project aims to identify the key proteins that keep prostate cancer cells dormant in the bone environment. The successful identification of dormancy drivers, including the upstream regulators and downstream effectors, will yield a better understanding of how prostate cancer cells respond to dormancy induction signals from the bone microenvironment and also facilitate the development of targeted therapies to induce or maintain the DTCs as dormant, thus stopping the lethal bone metastases.

F or many oncogenic cancer driver genes, although the causal relationship between the dysregulation of the genes and cancer is well documented, the transcription regulation of the genes themselves, are not fully elucidated. We hypothesize that, by systematic profiling of the proteins that bind to the transcription regulation regions (such as promoters, enhancers, etc.), we will have a great opportunities to identify the key switch that determines the dysregulation of driver genes. In this DOD-funded project, we will develop a locus-specific proteomic approach for characterization of the potential regulatory binding proteins (RBPs) of key driver genes in prostate cancer. This approach will potentially serve as a universal toolkit to decipher the RBP atlas of key proteins in many other cancers and diseases.