▽Research

Acquisition of genome instability phenotype

Cancer develops due to accumulation of multiple genetic changes, while various “safeguard” mechanisms are built in to cells, perturbations of which are believed to make the genome unstable. One of our major projects is related to this driving force of cancer development. In addition to our previous findings showing that lung cancer cells carry impairment of multiple checkpoints, we recently found through re-analysis of our expression profiling dataset that POLD4, a subunit of DNA polymerase δ, is characteristically down-regulated in the majority of small cell lung cancers as well as in a small fraction of non-small cell lung cancers in association with poor prognosis. This aberration appears to have direct involvement in the acquisition of genomic instability phenotype in lung cancer cell lines. Further studies are currently underway to gain in-depth mechanistic insight into the molecular basis of genomic instability related to this devastating cancer, with the primary aim being future translation of our findings into development of a novel therapeutic strategy.