Publications by authors named "Robyn Howard"

Background: In Australia, between the years 2010 and 2014, over 4500 adolescents and young adults (15-25 years old) were diagnosed with cancer. Treatment regimens are often gonadotoxic and are well known to induce ovarian and testicular failure. Oncofertility is an emerging discipline in obstetrics and gynaecology which seeks to preserve and restore the reproductive future of cancer patients.

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In Caenorhabditis elegans, Ras/ERK and Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathways cooperate to induce P12 and vulval cell fates in a Hox-dependent manner. Here we describe eor-1 and eor-2, two new positively acting nuclear components of the Ras and Wnt pathways. eor-1 and eor-2 act downstream or in parallel to ERK and function redundantly with the Mediator complex gene sur-2 and the functionally related gene lin-25, such that removal of both eor-1/eor-2 and sur-2/lin-25 mimics the removal of a main Ras pathway component.

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In Caenorhabditis elegans, the Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK signal transduction pathway controls multiple processes including excretory system development, P12 fate specification, and vulval cell fate specification. To identify positive regulators of Ras signaling, we conducted a genetic screen for mutations that enhance the excretory system and egg-laying defects of hypomorphic lin-45 raf mutants. This screen identified unusual alleles of several known Ras pathway genes, including a mutation removing the second SH3 domain of the sem-5/Grb2 adaptor, a temperature-sensitive mutation in the helical hairpin of let-341/Sos, a gain-of-function mutation affecting a potential phosphorylation site of the lin-1 Ets domain transcription factor, a dominant-negative allele of ksr-1, and hypomorphic alleles of sur-6/PP2A-B, sur-2/Mediator, and lin-25.

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