Publications by authors named "Kevin Dierck"

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common cause of cancer-related death in children. Despite significantly increased chances of cure, especially for high-risk ALL patients, it still represents a poor prognosis for a substantial fraction of patients. Misregulated proteins in central switching points of the cellular signaling pathways represent potentially important therapeutic targets.

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Article Synopsis
  • Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) play a key role in the development of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), but understanding how their signaling impacts cancer behavior is complex.
  • Researchers used patient-derived models of ALL influenced by specific RTKs (FLT3 and PDGFRB) and employed phosphoproteomics to explore signaling pathways and identify group I p21-activated kinases (PAKs) as potential new targets for therapy.
  • Inhibiting PAKs, either through RNA interference or specific drugs, reduced leukemia cell growth and increased cell death, and combining PAK inhibitors with existing treatments enhanced their effectiveness, suggesting a promising strategy to improve outcomes in RTK-dependent ALL.
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  • In acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), the common fusion gene PML-RARα is typically linked to leukemia, but its effectiveness when expressed in mice is limited.
  • Replacing the human PML fusion with a mouse version creates a more potent hybrid, murine PML-RARα (mPR), which is linked to a higher risk of leukemia.
  • This mPR oncoprotein prevents cellular aging by inhibiting key cell-cycle regulators, pointing towards targeting senescence as a potential strategy for APL treatment.
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Differentiation arrest is a hallmark of acute leukemia. Genomic alterations in B cell differentiation factors such as PAX5, IKZF1, and EBF-1 have been identified in more than half of all cases of childhood B precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Here, we describe a perturbed epigenetic and transcriptional regulation of ZNF423 in ALL as a novel mechanism interfering with B cell differentiation.

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Global monitoring of cellular signaling activity is of great importance for the understanding of the regulation of complex signaling networks and the characterization of signaling pathways deregulated in diseases. Tyrosine phosphorylation of intracellular signaling proteins followed by the recognition and binding of Src homology 2 (SH2) domains are key mechanisms in the downstream transmission of many important biological signals. SH2 domains, comprising 120 members in humans, are small modular protein binding domains that recognize tyrosine phosphorylated signaling proteins with high specificity.

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Protein tyrosine phosphorylation controls many aspects of signaling in multicellular organisms. One of the major consequences of tyrosine phosphorylation is the creation of binding sites for proteins containing Src homology 2 (SH2) domains. To profile the global tyrosine phosphorylation state of the cell, we have developed proteomic binding assays encompassing nearly the full complement of human SH2 domains.

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Deciphering global signaling networks is of great importance for the detailed understanding of cellular signaling processes controlling many important biological functions. Among signaling processes, tyrosine phosphorylation has a central role. At present, adequate techniques for the global characterization of the tyrosine phosphoproteome are lacking, particularly for the analysis of small amounts of protein.

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