Noticia

El próximo lunes 13 de Mayo a las 12:30h en el Salón Azul del HCUVA tendrá lugar el Seminario externo del IMIB Arrixaca titulado:

“Mining the microproteome to find novel modulators of cancer cell plasticity "

impartido por la Dra María Abad, del Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), Barcelona, Spain

Recent findings have revealed that many RNA molecules annotated as non-protein coding (ncRNAs) actually contain small open reading frames that are transcribed and translated into evolutionary conserved, unannotated small-ORF encoded peptides (SEPs), also known as micropeptides. Based on ribosome profiling, proteomics and phylogenetic analyses, the human genome hides thousands of evolutionary conserved micropetides that remain to be identified. These surprising observations open a whole new level of biological complexity, bearing enormous implications from basic research to the clinical setting.

The few micropeptides characterized to date play key functions in fundamental processes such as DNA repair, embryonic development and tissue regeneration. However, despite the growing interest in finding novel micropeptides, their relevance in pathological settings such as cancer has not been revealed so far. My group is currently focused on the discovery of micropeptides relevant for cellular plasticity and cancer. Using a computational method for phylogenetic analysis, we have identified 6 novel and evolutionary conserved micropeptides dysregulated in cancer. We have experimentally validated their translation and characterized their molecular functions in vitro and in vivo. We will present our results, that demonstrate that our newly identified micropeptides play important roles in diverse functions such as induction of apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, cellular differentiation and inhibition of EMT, all of them under the umbrella of tumor suppression. In summary, we have identified 6 novel tumor suppressor micropeptides, that could provide new molecular targets for cancer therapies

Más información en:

http://www.vhio.net/es/maria-abad/