Role of Protein Cross-Linking in the Tumor Microenvironment

摘要

In this work we have set out to answer the question of whether tissue transglutaminase is one of the enzymes that is responsible for extracellular matrix changes that correlate with tumor metastatic activity. However there is a lack of analytical tools to study and characterize what TG is doing at the molecular level. To date we have developed the necessary tools to begin to characterize TG mediated crosslinks in the extracellular environment of complex in vitro and in vivo biological systems. Future work is focus on defining how TG crosslinked matrix influences breast cancer cell lines phenotype to determine the therapeutic potential of this enzyme.