Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Signaling

Focus of our research:
Receptor Tyrosine Kinases (RTKs) play essential roles in the transduction of external stimuli and enable cells to respond to their environment properly. Many alterations of these kinases through mutations, gene amplifications or protein overexpression strongly affect, and mostly enhance the development of cancer. miRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that are only ~1% of all known genes, but regulate almost 30% of the genome. Our group focuses on the role of miRNAs in the regulation of RTK signalling and the aim is to identify miRNAs, which have potential role in the cancer progression, for the targeted therapy.


Current Projects:
1. The role of miRNAs in Receptor Tyrosine Kinase (RTK) signalling
2. Involvement of miRNAs in feedback regulation of EGFR signalling

Former Projects (done in Integrative Cell Biology and Functional Profiling Groups):
1. Modelling of ERBB receptor regulated G1/S transition in trastuzumab resistant breast cancer
2. Establishment of combinatorial RNAi in order to study cross-talk events in signalling networks
3. Identification of novel targets in acquired Tamoxifen resistant cells

Publications:
Sahin Ö, Löbke C, Korf U, Appelhans H, Sültmann H, Poustka A, Wiemann S, Arlt D (2007) Combinatorial RNAi for quantitative protein network analysis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:6579-6584.

Sauermann M, Sahin Ö, Sültmann H, Hahne F, Blaszkiewicz S, Majety M, Zatloukal K, Füzesi L, Poustka A, Wiemann S, Arlt D (2008) Reduced expression of Vacuole membrane protein 1 (Vmp1) affects the invasion capacity of tumor cells. Oncogene 27(9):1320-6.

Löbke C, Laible M, Rappl C, Ruschaupt M, Sahin Ö, Arlt D, Wiemann S, Poustka A, Sültmann H, Korf U (2008) Contact-spotting of protein microarrays coupled with spike-in of normalizer protein permits time-resolved analysis of ERBB receptor signalling. Proteomics 8(8):1586-94.

Arlt D, Sahin Ö, Korf U, Loebke C, Beißbarth T, Hahne F, Wiemann S, Poustka A (2006) Modeling breast cell cycle regulation - overcoming drug resistance Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc.1:40-3.

Members:

Group head
Dr. Özgür Sahin

Students
Anja Schwäger

Technicans
Sara Burmester
Jens Mattern