Tumor Suppressors and Breast Cancer: Molecular Interaction of Retinoblastoma Protein (Rb) with a New Rb-binding Protein (RIZ)

摘要

Cancer arises from an accumulation of multiple mutations that may occur in oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes or DNA repair genes. Tumor suppressors control cell cycle and growth and mutations or alterations in these suppressors can be associated with the uncontrolled growth of malignant tumors. In this project, two tumor suppressors are targeted: the well-characterized Rb protein and a new protein that binds to it called RlZ, which is itself, a tumor suppressor. The goal is to use x-ray crystallography to study the interactions between Rb and RlZ and to identify the molecular contacts in these interactions. The results will be important to understanding the role of the new regulator protein RlZ in tumorigenesis in breast cancer. This IDEA project is focused on the first step in the process, i.e., crystallization of the proteins. The results to date report the growth of crystals of one functional domain of RlZ and of the pocket domain of Rb.