Overview

The Molecular Oncology group investigates the underlying molecular basis of cancer, by studying a number of amplification target genes which A/Prof. Byrne and her colleagues have identified. Gene amplification represents a mechanism which commonly activates oncogenes, and Dr Byrne's work focuses up the amplification targets tumor protein D52 and MAL2. The tumor protein D52 (or simply D52) gene was identified by Dr Byrne when she was a post-doctoral fellow in France. She subsequently identified two other broadly-expressed members of this family, and the four-transmembrane protein MAL2, which is a common binding partner of D52-like proteins. The D52 gene is increasingly recognised to be overexpressed in different human cancer types, at different stages of tumour progression. Furthermore, D52 overexpression in cell lines increases proliferation and anchorage-independent growth, and confers a metastatic phenotype. Recently, A/Prof. Byrne's group found that high D52 expression in breast cancer is associated with poor survival, in agreement with the results of expression microarray analyses which have included the D52 in gene profiles associated with poor prognosis. The Molecular Oncology group is now working towards understanding how D52 overexpression contributes to cellular transformation and tumor progression, in order to target D52 overexpression therapeutically.

Current laboratory interests include:

• Identifying functional differences between individual D52-like proteins
• the significance of interactions between D52-like proteins and MAL2, and other novel partners
• the consequences of D52 over- and underexpression in model systems, and
• the endogenous expression of D52 and MAL2 in childhood and adult cancers