Antibody Induced Perturbation-A New Method to Identify Pathways in Breast Cancer Progression, Invasion and Metastasis

摘要

There is a critical need for markers of metastasis that will allow patients who are node negative to be separated into two groups: those who need further therapy and those who have been cured by their surgery. We hypothesized that changes in cellular biochemistry, that need not involve changes in the expression of particular genes, are important determinants of metastatic behavior, and we further hypothesized that many of these changes might be mimicked by the binding of an antibody with the right binding characteristics. We set out to test the idea that novel determinants of metastatic behavior could be identified by expressing single chain antibodies inside non-metastatic cells, and then screening those cells for the acquisition of a more metastatic phenotype. The antibody responsible for this increased metastatic ability would then be isolated from these cells and used to identify the protein with which it interacted. The project has met with significant technical challenges which have slowed progress. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made to overcome these difficulties and we anticipate being able to complete the study, having been granted a no-cost extension of one year.