Phosphorylated cortactin recruits Vav2 guanine nucleotide exchange factor to activate Rac3 and promote invadopodial function in invasive breast cancer cells.

Breast carcinoma cells use specialized, actin-rich protrusions called invadopodia to degrade and invade through the extracellular matrix. Phosphorylation of the actin nucleation-promoting factor and actin-stabilizing protein cortactin downstream of the epidermal growth factor receptor-Src-Arg kinase cascade is known to be a critical trigger for invadopodium maturation and subsequent cell invasion in breast cancer cells. The functions of cortactin phosphorylation in this process, however, are not completely understood.

Immunomodulatory spherical nucleic acids.

Immunomodulatory nucleic acids have extraordinary promise for treating disease, yet clinical progress has been limited by a lack of tools to safely increase activity in patients. Immunomodulatory nucleic acids act by agonizing or antagonizing endosomal toll-like receptors (TLR3, TLR7/8, and TLR9), proteins involved in innate immune signaling. Immunomodulatory spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) that stimulate (immunostimulatory, IS-SNA) or regulate (immunoregulatory, IR-SNA) immunity by engaging TLRs have been designed, synthesized, and characterized.

NanoFlares for the detection, isolation, and culture of live tumor cells from human blood.

Metastasis portends a poor prognosis for cancer patients. Primary tumor cells disseminate through the bloodstream before the appearance of detectable metastatic lesions. The analysis of cancer cells in blood—so-called circulating tumor cells (CTCs)—may provide unprecedented opportunities for metastatic risk assessment and investigation.

Two amino acid residues confer different binding affinities of Abelson family kinase SRC homology 2 domains for phosphorylated cortactin.

The closely related Abl family kinases, Arg and Abl, play important non-redundant roles in the regulation of cell morphogenesis and motility. Despite similar N-terminal sequences, Arg and Abl interact with different substrates and binding partners with varying affinities. This selectivity may be due to slight differences in amino acid sequence leading to differential interactions with target proteins.

Selective recognition of protein tetraserine motifs with a cell-permeable, pro-fluorescent bis-boronic acid.

There is considerable interest in novel cell imaging tools that avoid the use of fluorescent proteins. One widely used class of such reagents are "pro-fluorescent" biarsenical dyes such as FlAsH, ReAsH, CrAsH, and Cy3As. Despite their utility, biarsenicals are plagued by high background labeling and cytotoxicity and are challenging to apply in oxidizing cellular locale.