Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon ’01 recently published research from his laboratory that reveals significant insights into factors regulating tumor growth and progression.  The article, entitled “Whole genome expression microarray analysis of highly versus poorly tumorigenic murine melanoma cell lines provides insights into factors that regulate tumor growth, metastasis, and immunogenicity,” was published in Frontiers in Immunology, the official journal of the International Union of Immunological Societies.  Dr. Hargadon’s study compared the expression of more than 39,000 genes in highly aggressive versus slow-growing melanomas and identified 1,462 genes that are overexpressed and 1,935 genes that are underexpressed in the aggressive form of this cancer.  These findings highlight several critical genes and pathways controlling the behavior of tumor cells that will increase our understanding of tumor progression and potentially identify novel targets for cancer therapy.  Indeed, results from this study are driving current work by Dr. Hargadon and his collaborating H-SC students that focuses on one of the genes (known as Foxc2) found to be overexpressed in aggressive melanoma.    

The Frontiers in Immunology article is available for download at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fimmu.2015.00452/full