Dr. Dennis Discher
Robert D. Bent Professor
University of Pennsylvania
“Mechanobiological insights into fat, genome integrity, and tumoricidal macrophages”
Abstract:
Fat is usually considered soft, but fat droplets accumulate within cells and remain round as they displace, deform, and simply dominate organelles including the nuclear envelope. The latter ruptures when nuclear lamina proteins are low and impinging fat droplets have high curvature, thus causing loss of DNA repair factors to cytoplasm and DNA damage. In related contexts and with a focus on solid tumors, we study signaling to macrophages. We find that pushing a tumoricidal phenotype favors macrophage clustering and cooperation of ‘intrudo-podia’ that disrupt solid tumors for engulfment and anticancer immunity.
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