Seminarium Zakładu Biofizyki

Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women. One in eight women is expected to develop breast cancer in their lifetime. Despite significant advances in the treatment of breast cancer, the biology of this disease is still not fully understood, which justifies the need for basic research in oncology. Our group aims to understand how aberrant signalling in cancer cells contributes to cancer development, metastasis or therapy resistance and how we can use that knowledge to design better and safer anticancer treatments. In my talk, I will focus on the role of MLK4 in breast cancer development and progression. MLK4 (Mixed-Lineage Kinase 4) is a member of the MLK family of serine/threonine kinases that plays a role in a variety of cellular processes, including migration, apoptosis and proliferation. Despite an increasing number of studies describing the involvement of MLKs in tumorigenesis, the role of MLK4 in cancer progression is still relatively unknown. We showed that MLK4 is highly expressed in breast carcinoma and that it contributes to the aggressive behaviour of breast cancer cells. Moreover, our recent data indicate that MLK4 activity is associated with increased resistance of breast cancer cells to chemotherapy. We also identified a novel function of MLK4 in the regulation of DNA damage response signalling during the treatment with chemotherapeutics. Taken together, our results highlight the oncogenic role of MLK4 and indicate that the inhibition of this kinase could be a new therapeutic strategy for breast cancer treatment