DEVELOPMENT OF AN ANTICANCER DRUG USING ERBB-2 LIGAND-S

在过去的十年里，我们开始明白癌症的增长

In the last decade we have come to understand that the growth of cancer cells in general and of breast cancer in particular depends, in many cases, upon growth factors that will bind to and activate their receptors. One of these growth factor receptors is the erbB-2 protein which plays an important role in the prognosis of breast cancer and is overexpressed in nearly 30% of human breast cancer patients. While evidence accumulates to support the relationship between erbB-2 overexpression and poor overall survival in breast cancer, understanding of the biological consequence(s) of erbB-2 overexpression remains elusive. The novel discovery of the erbB- 2 ligand (gp3O) has allowed the identification of a number of related but distinct biological endpoints which appear responsive to signal transduction through the erbB-2 receptor. These endpoints of growth, invasiveness, and differentiation have clear implications for the emergence, maintenance and/or control of malignancy, and represent established endpoints in the assessment of malignant progression in breast cancer. The availability of gp3O full length cDNAs provides tools necessary to acquire a better understanding of the mechanism of action of the this ligands and the erbB-2 receptor in breast cancer. The proposed studies are designed to define the involvement of gp3O in breast cancer. Specifically, we will construct a ligand/toxin fusion protein in order to determine the ability of gp30-Saporin (SAP) to inhibit tumor growth of breast cancer cells in vivo.