Drug Development.

Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified close to one hundred loci associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk. However, for most of these loci we do not understand the underlying mechanism leading to disease. Crispr genome editing in human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) provides a model system to study the effects of these genetic variants in a disease relevant cell type.

Inactivation of LATS1/2 drives luminal-basal plasticity to initiate basal-like mammary carcinomas.

Basal-like breast cancers, an aggressive breast cancer subtype that has poor treatment options, are thought to arise from luminal mammary epithelial cells that undergo basal plasticity through poorly understood mechanisms. Using genetic mouse models and ex vivo primary organoid cultures, we show that conditional co-deletion of the LATS1 and LATS2 kinases, key effectors of Hippo pathway signaling, in mature mammary luminal epithelial cells promotes the development of Krt14 and Sox9-expressing basal-like carcinomas that metastasize over time. Genetic co-deletion experiments revealed that phenotypes resulting from the loss of LATS1/2 activity are dependent on the transcriptional regulators YAP/TAZ.