Investigating the effects of phosphatases on Trk signalling and cell fate in neuroblastoma (360G-Wellcome-207179_Z_17_Z)

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Neuroblastoma is highly variable in outcome; it might be aggressive and fatal, but might also spontaneously regress. Expression of TrkA is strongly associated with patient survival (due to differentiation or apoptosis of the cancer cells), whereas TrkB is associated with unfavorable, metastatic cancer. My supervisor's group generated cell lines that over-express the different Trk-receptors. These cell lines mimic the characteristics of the human tumours; i.e., TrkA cells differentiate upon NGF stimulation, and TrkB cells proliferate upon ligand (BDNF) binding. My supervisor's group found that NGF and BDNF activate the same major pathways but with different dynamics (i.e., different signal duration). Therefore, we hypothesise that the different downstream dynamics of TrkA and TrkB signalling is responsible for the diffent cell fates, differentiation and proliferation, respectively. Since phosphatases are important regulators of signal duration; my aim is to investigate the activity of five phosphatases in TrkA and TrkB cells by Western blotting. Moreover, we wold like to test if we can modify cell fate by altering phosphatase activity in TrkB over-expressing neuroblastoma cells (i.e., induce differentiation of cells instead of proliferation).

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Grant Details

Amount Awarded 0
Applicant Surname Keane
Approval Committee Internal Decision Panel
Award Date 2017-04-27T00:00:00+00:00
Financial Year 2016/17
Grant Programme: Title Vacation Scholarships
Internal ID 207179/Z/17/Z
Lead Applicant Ms Francesca Keane
Partnership Value 0
Planned Dates: End Date 2017-07-31T00:00:00+00:00
Planned Dates: Start Date 2017-06-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recipient Org: Country Ireland
Region Ireland