Maike Sander
School of Biological Sciences
Phone: (949) 824-4952
Email: msander@uci.edu
http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5270
Maike Sander
It is thought that multipotential tissue-specific stem cells play a key role in both organ formation and the pathogenesis of cancer. Cancer stem cells and normal stem cells share many functional properties, which include the potential for unlimited self-renewal. Dr. Sander’s laboratory employs mouse genetics to identify factors that control the self-renewal and maintenance of multipotential organ stem cells of the pancreas. They have identified a molecular pathway that stimulates the proliferation and survival of pancreas stem cells and prevents these cells from becoming non-self-renewing tissue precursor cells. Interestingly, they found that this molecular pathway is active in all cells that mark the early stages of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. These findings suggest that a molecular program of embryonic stem cell maintenance is reactivated, when ductal cells progress from a normal cell state to becoming a pancreas cancer precursor cell. Using genetic mouse models of pancreatic ductal addenocarinoma as well as in vitro assays, the lab investigates whether this pathway of embryonic stem/progenitor cell maintenance is involved in the pathogenesis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Selected Publications:
Henseleit, K. D., Nelson, S. B., Kuhlbrodt, K., Hennings, J. C., Ericson, J., and Sander, M. (2005). NKX6 transcription factor activity is required for alpha- and beta-cell development in the pancreas. Development 132(13), 3139-49.
Pedersen, J. K., Nelson, S. B., Jorgensen, M. C., Henseleit, K. D., Fujitani, Y., Wright, C. V., Sander, M., and Serup, P. (2005). Endodermal expression of Nkx6 genes depends differentially on Pdx1. Dev Biol 288(2), 487-501.
Seymour, P. A., Freude, K. K., Tran, M. N., Mayes, E. E., Jensen, J., Kist, R., Scherer, G., and Sander, M. (2007). SOX9 is required for maintenance of the pancreatic progenitor cell pool. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104(6), 1865-70.
Nelson, S. B., Schaffer, A. E., and Sander, M. (2007). The transcription factors Nkx6.1 and Nkx6.2 possess equivalent activities in promoting beta-cell fate specification in Pdx1+ pancreatic progenitor cells. Development 134(13), 2491-500. |
