Promiscuous receptors

Credit: Alfred Pasieka / Photo Researchers, Inc." /> Credit: Alfred Pasieka / Photo Researchers, Inc. The paper: R.B. Jones et al., "A quantitative protein interaction network for the ErbB receptors using protein microarrays," Nature, 439:168–74, 2006. (Cited in 98 papers) The finding: Gavin MacBeath's team at Harvard University wanted to find the proteins that get recruited to receptors in the first step of epidermal growth factor

Written byAndrea Gawrylewski
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R.B. Jones et al., "A quantitative protein interaction network for the ErbB receptors using protein microarrays," Nature, 439:168–74, 2006. (Cited in 98 papers)

Gavin MacBeath's team at Harvard University wanted to find the proteins that get recruited to receptors in the first step of epidermal growth factor signaling. Using microarrays to perform a genome-wide assessment of the receptor network, they found that EGFR and ErbB2 bind to proteins more promiscuously, and activate many more signaling pathways, as they are overexpressed.

This paper enforced previous observations that overexpression of the EGFR and ErbB2 receptors are associated with human cancers; these receptors may turn on different signaling pathways that could alter the state of the cell, in some cases leading to uncontrollable cell division.

MacBeath said his group has found in follow-up work that their data can predict the differences in downstream signaling that occur with changes in the expression of other ...

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