Endocrine Abstracts

Oestrogens promote breast cancer development and progression by binding to the oestrogen receptors. Oestrogen receptor-alpha (ER) is a transcription regulatory protein that is activated upon binding oestrogen and acts by controlling gene expression in breast cancer cells and is the target for endocrine therapies that inhibit its activity by competing with oestrogen for binding to ER (anti-oestrogens) or by inhibiting oestrogen biosynthesis (aromatase inhibitors). These therapi...

The androgen receptor (AR) is a major therapeutic target once prostate cancer has progressed. Even invasive cells remain initially responsive to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) but ultimately become ADT-recurrent, which is lethal. Aggressive ADT-recurrent cells nonetheless retain active AR signaling, but in a distorted form as a result of the actions of transcription factor co-regulators, including the corepressors, for example as revealed by the TCGA consortium. We have ex...

Epigenetic events, such as gene promoter DNA hypermethylation linked to changes in gene expression, are causative of resistance to cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs such as cisplatin in ovarian cancer cell line models, and associated with response to chemotherapy and survival of high grade serous ovarian cancer patients. We are studying the role of epigenetic change throughout the patient journey and how this associates with gene expression changes which can be selected for during ...