Topic: patient survival

Diaphanous-related formin (DIAPH) 3 is a key regulator of fundamental processes such as division, adhesion, motility and polarity. Diaph3 is exclusively expressed in neural progenitors in the developing mouse brain and its deficiency causes aberrant cell division and aneuploidy, resulting in the loss of neural progenitor cells. Errors in mitosis often lead to mitotic catastrophe and subsequent cell death, impeding the proliferation of aneuploid cells. Nevertheless, aneuploidy is a hallmark of highly proliferative cancer cells and is generally associated with poor prognosis and therapeutic resi

Glioblastoma is an aggressive primary brain cancer with poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. In tumors, glioblastoma cells control their microenvironment through the secretion of proteins and other factors. Work from our lab has identified a new unconventional secretion mechanism that is dependent on VAMP7, a tetanus neurotoxin insensitive v-SNARE. We have shown that Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) and mitochondrial fragments can be incorporated into late endosomes and can later be released by an unconventional secretory mechanism. This process is more efficient in the absence of degrada