Prostate cancer (CaP) is the second leading cause of cancer death in men and has a high prevalence to metastasize to bone and lung making it a very difficult cancer to treat if not detected early. In order for cancerous cells to metastasize to secondary sites they must be able to detach from the primary site, invade the stroma, intravasate and extravasate. The matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) have been implicated in extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation during cancer cell invasion. An understudied family of multi-domain disintegrin metalloproteinases, ADAMs (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase), has been suggested to not only degrade ECM proteins but also allow for cell detachment which may support cell migration. In addition, ADAMs have been shown to shed growth factors into the extracellular milieu which may signal cell survival and neovasculature during metastatic progression. Furthermore, the ADAM disintegrin metalloproteinases have been shown to be involved in breast, gastrointestinal and neuronal neoplastic progression.

ADAM15 has been shown by our lab to be transcriptionally and translationally upregluated in metastatic prostate cancer. Therefore, we hypothesize that the upregulation of ADAM15 in prostate cancer cells may support the metastatic progression of prostate cancer. My thesis project is focused on elucidating the biological role ADAM15 plays in mediating prostate cancer progression

PUBLICATIONS

LINKS

1. http://med.umich.edu/cmb/

2. http://www.mca-aa.org/

CONTACT INFORMATION

Email: abdonajy@umich.edu

Phone: (734) 647-2528

Fax: (734)647-9271