Investigation of a mitochondria-associated metastasis regulatory mechanism

肺癌是美国癌症相关死亡的主要原因， 美国人每年死于肺癌。尽管我们采取了最好的治疗方法，但治疗肺癌的努力还是失败了。 大多数情况下，部分原因是对转移生物学的理解不足，这几乎不可避免地导致 肺癌的死亡率。因此，更好地理解调节转移的机制将使我们获得 更深入地了解疾病基础，在此基础上，治疗转移性肺癌的新治疗策略 可以开发和测试。在我们初步研究的基础上，我们确定了一个与自噬相关的基因， 通过一种新的线粒体相关蛋白在调节肺癌转移中起着关键作用。 机制该提案的主要目标是确定是否操纵此 基因或其线粒体相关功能可以抑制肺癌的扩散。因此，我们的研究 不仅揭示了肺癌的新的基本机制，而且具有转化潜力。因为有 全球每年约有200万新发肺癌病例（世界卫生组织统计），我们的研究可能会 对公众健康有重大影响。

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States, and more than 150,000 Americans die of lung cancer each year. Despite our best treatment, efforts to cure lung cancer have failed in most cases, partly due to an insufficient understanding of the biology of metastasis, which almost inevitably leads to lung cancer death. Therefore, understanding better the mechanism regulating metastasis will allow us to gain deeper insights into the disease basis, on which novel therapeutic strategies for treating metastatic lung cancer can be developed and tested. On the basis of our preliminary studies, we posit that an autophagy related gene plays a critical role in the regulation of lung cancer metastasis through a novel mitochondria associated mechanism. The primary objectives of this proposal are to determine whether manipulating the expression of this gene or its mitochondria associated function can inhibit the dissemination of lung cancer. As such, our studies not only reveal a new basic mechanism for lung cancer, but have translational potentials. Because there are about 2 million new lung cancer cases each year globally (World Health Organization statistics), our studies may have a major impact on public health.