"Role of Viral and Cellular FLIP proteins in Tumors" Prof. Mary Collins

President invites you all to the seminar by Prof. Mary Collins held next week. Please find the details as follows:

Speaker: Dr. Mary Collins, Professor of Immunology, University College London

Head of Division of Advanced Therapies, National Institute of Biological Standards and Control

http://www.nibsc.org/about_us/staff_profiles/professor_mary_collins.aspx

Title: Role of Viral and Cellular FLIP proteins in Tumors

Date: Thursday, September 24th, 2015

Time: 10:00 – 11:00

Venue: C209, Center Building

Abstract:

Kaposi’s sarcoma is a skin tumor caused, by a herpesvirus KSHV/HHV8, in patients with a poor immune system. KSHV also causes B cell tumors of the immune system. We have been interested in how KSHV causes tumors.

One of a small number of viral proteins expressed by KSHV in tumor cells is called vFLIP. We have shown that vFLIP associates with a central cell-signaling regulator called IKK, which activates the NFkB signaling pathway. Our present aim is to understand how vFLIP binding activates IKK and I will present our current ideas and experiments. Also, from the crystal structure of vFLIP bound to IKK, we are designing inhibitors of vFLIP/IKK and testing cytotoxic effect on KSHV tumors.

This work led us to re-examine the role of the cellular FLIP proteins, which were first identified in silico as vFLIP homologs. We found that cFLIP isoforms also activate IKK, but indirectly by triggering cellular ubiquitination pathways. We are examining how cFLIP participates in non-viral human B cell tumors.