Academy of Finland awarded Maria Georgiadou (Ivaska lab) with Academy Postdoctoral Fellow funding 261 109 € for 2017-2020

    Academy of Finland awarded Maria Georgiadou (Ivaska lab) with Academy Postdoctoral Fellow funding 261 109 € for 2017-2020

    Project title: Cell metabolism and Tyrosine phosphorylation as novel regulators of integrin activity.

    Project description: Integrins are cell adhesion receptors playing essential roles in health and disease, by regulating cell migration, survival, proliferation, differentiation. Integrins are expressed at the plasma membrane both in a low-affinity “inactive” state and in a high-affinity “active” state. Integrin activation leads to enhanced signalling and inappropriate integrin activation has been linked to several diseases, including cancer. Hence, understanding how integrin activity is regulated is of major clinical relevance. In an effort to identify novel integrin activity regulators Johanna Ivaska’s laboratory (host laboratory) has performed RNAi screens in several cancer cell lines. In those screens the metabolic sensor AMP-kinase (AMPK) and many other genes involved in metabolism were identified as potential regulators of integrin activity. The aims of the project are twofold: (1) to identify the cellular signalling pathways involved in ?1-integrin tyrosine phosphorylation and their role in integrin activity and matrix formation in fibroblasts; and (2) to characterize the role of metabolism in regulating integrin activity, migration and invasion in cancer cells.