Chromatindynamics and metabolism in cancer
This group belongs to the UMR 9018 - Metabolic and systemic aspects of oncogenesis for novel therapeutic approaches (Metsy)
We are working on the founding events in oncogenesis. Our approach allows us to search for early biomarkers of cancers and develop cancer-preventive approaches.
Research topics
We are interested in the earliest stages of oncogenesis with the aim to find early biomarkers of cancer and identify new prevention and treatment approaches. Viral infections trigger major changes in the organization of the nucleus, transcriptional profiles and in the regulation of the mTORC1 pathway in infected cells. We study how viruses and their proteins trigger cancer and how they affect genome stability, modulate nuclear organization and metabolism. We analyze the cancer-related changes in gene transcription and genome organization at a single cell level, which should allow identification of the early cancer biomarkers of lymphomas. We also study mechanisms involved in resistance to drugs acquired by B-cell lymphomas and develop new tools to overcome this resistance. Finally, we are studying cancer-related alternations of a major metabolic system, the mTORC1 pathway.
Localization of the MYC (red) et IGH (green) loci in B lymphocytes from a healthy subject (left) and an HIV-infected patient is an example of the genome organization altered by viruses.
mTORC1, a master regulator of cellular prolifiration and survival, controls cellular responses to different stimuli.
