TY - JOUR A1 - Hofstetter, Julia A1 - Ogunleye, Ayoola A1 - Kutschke, André A1 - Buchholz, Lisa Marie A1 - Wolf, Elmar A1 - Raabe, Thomas A1 - Gallant, Peter T1 - Spt5 interacts genetically with Myc and is limiting for brain tumor growth in Drosophila JF - Life Science Alliance N2 - The transcription factor SPT5 physically interacts with MYC oncoproteins and is essential for efficient transcriptional activation of MYC targets in cultured cells. Here, we use Drosophila to address the relevance of this interaction in a living organism. Spt5 displays moderate synergy with Myc in fast proliferating young imaginal disc cells. During later development, Spt5-knockdown has no detectable consequences on its own, but strongly enhances eye defects caused by Myc overexpression. Similarly, Spt5-knockdown in larval type 2 neuroblasts has only mild effects on brain development and survival of control flies, but dramatically shrinks the volumes of experimentally induced neuroblast tumors and significantly extends the lifespan of tumor-bearing animals. This beneficial effect is still observed when Spt5 is knocked down systemically and after tumor initiation, highlighting SPT5 as a potential drug target in human oncology. KW - Drosophila KW - transcription factor SPT5 KW - Myc KW - brain tumor KW - tumor growth Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-350197 SN - 2575-1077 VL - 7 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grimmig, Tanja A1 - Moench, Romana A1 - Kreckel, Jennifer A1 - Haack, Stephanie A1 - Rueckert, Felix A1 - Rehder, Roberta A1 - Tripathi, Sudipta A1 - Ribas, Carmen A1 - Chandraker, Anil A1 - Germer, Christoph T. A1 - Gasser, Martin A1 - Waaga-Gasser, Ana Maria T1 - Toll Like Receptor 2, 4, and 9 Signaling Promotes Autoregulative Tumor Cell Growth and VEGF/PDGF Expression in Human Pancreatic Cancer JF - International Journal of Molecular Sciences N2 - Toll like receptor (TLR) signaling has been suggested to play an important role in the inflammatory microenvironment of solid tumors and through this inflammation-mediated tumor growth. Here, we studied the role of tumor cells in their process of self-maintaining TLR expression independent of inflammatory cells and cytokine milieu for autoregulative tumor growth signaling in pancreatic cancer. We analyzed the expression of TLR2, -4, and -9 in primary human cancers and their impact on tumor growth via induced activation in several established pancreatic cancers. TLR-stimulated pancreatic cancer cells were specifically investigated for activated signaling pathways of VEGF/PDGF and anti-apoptotic Bcl-xL expression as well as tumor cell growth. The primary pancreatic cancers and cell lines expressed TLR2, -4, and -9. TLR-specific stimulation resulted in activated MAP-kinase signaling, most likely via autoregulative stimulation of demonstrated TLR-induced VEGF and PDGF expression. Moreover, TLR activation prompted the expression of Bcl-xL and has been demonstrated for the first time to induce tumor cell proliferation in pancreatic cancer. These findings strongly suggest that pancreatic cancer cells use specific Toll like receptor signaling to promote tumor cell proliferation and emphasize the particular role of TLR2, -4, and -9 in this autoregulative process of tumor cell activation and proliferation in pancreatic cancer. KW - tumor growth KW - TLR2 KW - TLR4 KW - TLR9 KW - pancreatic cancer KW - inflammation Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165743 VL - 17 IS - 12 ER -