My research is now focused on molecular cancer therapeutics, mainly in the area of drug resistance. Currently, we are investigating of 14-3-3 sigma, an abundant protein that is expressed in epithelial cells. Among other biological functions, 14-3-3 sigma is necessary for maintaining cell cycle arrest at G2/M following DNA damage. In addition, 14-3-3 sigma controls BAX-mediated apoptosis. Our research is to determine the effect and mechanism of 14-3-3 sigma-inactivation-mediated sensitizing of prostate cancer cells to mitoxantrone, a DNA-damaging topoisomerase II poison frequently used for treatment of hormone-refractory prostate cancers.
Another major area of my research is directed to both transcriptional and translational control of gene expression mediated by 5' untranslated regions (5'-UTR). Our research has concluded that the 5'-UTR sequences, which have previously been reported to be internal ribosomal entry sites (IRES's) based on transfection assays, might actually contain cryptic promoters that result in expression of downstream open reading frames. We aim to further analyze 5'-UTR sequences of several cancer-related genes including PTEN, PDGF-B and p27 and determine their possible roles in control of gene expression during cancer development.
