Mechanisms of cellular crosstalk in the gastric tumor microenvironment are mediated by YAP1 and STAT3.

Deregulation of the Hippo pathway is a driver for cancer progression and treatment resistance. In the context of gastric cancer, YAP1 is a biomarker for poor patient prognosis. Although genomic tumor profiling provides information of Hippo pathway activation, the present study demonstrates that inhibition of Yap1 activity has anti-tumor effects in gastric tumors driven by oncogenic mutations and inflammatory cytokines.

Embryonic Lethality in Homozygous Human Her-2 Transgenic Mice Due to Disruption of the Pds5b Gene.

The development of antigen-targeted therapeutics is dependent on the preferential expression of tumor-associated antigens (TAA) at targetable levels on the tumor. Tumor-associated antigens can be generated de novo or can arise from altered expression of normal basal proteins, such as the up-regulation of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her2/ErbB2). To properly assess the development of Her2 therapeutics in an immune tolerant model, we previously generated a transgenic mouse model in which expression of the human Her2 protein was present in both the brain and mammary tissue.

Overexpression of LMO4 induces mammary hyperplasia, promotes cell invasion, and is a predictor of poor outcome in breast cancer.

The zinc finger protein LMO4 is overexpressed in a high proportion of breast carcinomas. Here, we report that overexpression of a mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV)-Lmo4 transgene in the mouse mammary gland elicits hyperplasia and mammary intraepithelial neoplasia or adenosquamous carcinoma in two transgenic strains with a tumor latency of 13-18 months. To investigate cellular processes controlled by LMO4 and those that may be deregulated during oncogenesis, we used RNA interference.