Dab2 was identified to be consistently absent in breast and ovarian carcinomas but present in normal breast and ovarian epithelial cells. Our laboratory has chosen to study the possible pathological roles of Dabs in breast and ovarian cancers and the roles in growth factor signal transduction.
Cancer arises from a sequence of mutational events of both oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes.
Oncogenes can be activated by point mutation, truncation or gene amplification. Tumor suppressor genes can be inactivated by mechanisms such as homozygous deletion, point mutations, truncations, and suppression of expression by hypermethylation of the promotor. Oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes usually encode proteins functioning in the cell cycle and the mitogenic signalling pathways. The tumor suppressor activity of Dab2 is tested in tissue culture model and nude mice xenograft models. Another direction in the lab is to study the role of Dab2 in mitogenic signal transduction.