We have found Elk-1 to bind to DNA and function as a transcriptional activator. The defective functioning of this signaling network is the root cause of widespread diseases such as cancer.
Breast cancers have a decreased ability to undergo cell death.
Future efforts will be directed towards studying the death inducing functions of Elk-1 in model system using human breast cancer cells both in vivo and in vitro . We also plan to identify the natural targets and study biological functions like DNA binding, protein-protein interaction regulation of transcriptional activation through phosphorylation, and their role in cell growth, differentiation, signal transduction and cancer. In recent years, our interest has extended towards understanding the role of breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility gene BRCA1. The BRCT domains are targets for cancer-associated mutations. We have developed an assay for detecting functionally relevant changes in patients with BRCA1 mutations.