Abstract
Appropriate establishment and maintenance of cell polarity is essential for normal development and homeostasis. The vast majority of human cancers originate from epithelial tissues and tumour cell invasion and metastasis are the major cause of mortality in human cancers. Invading cells demonstrate loss of cell polarity, loss of epithelial cell-cell adhesions and tissue disorganisation. We examine the growing evidence linking loss of apicobasal polarity with tumour progression.
About the authors
Dr. Priscilla Lo is a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Marios Georgiou’s laboratory at the University of Nottingham. Dr. Lo completed her BSc and MSc at the University of Leicester and her PhD in Genetics at the University of Nottingham where she was supported by the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds PhD Fellowship, Overseas Research Student Award and British Federation for Women Graduates. Her research interests include epithelial cell polarity and epigenetics in cancer.
Hannah Hawrot is a fourth year undergraduate medical student working towards a Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery degree at the University of Nottingham. She studied the role of polarity proteins in the maintenance of epithelial cell shape in Dr. Georgiou’s lab, to obtain a Bachelor of Medical Sciences degree.
Dr. Marios Georgiou is a Lecturer in Cell Biology at the School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Nottingham. Dr. Georgiou obtained his PhD at King’s College, London and after post-doctoral positions in Vienna and London, he moved to Nottingham to set up an independent research group in 2010. In 2011 he was awarded a Career Establishment Award by Cancer Research UK. His group uses the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to study cell shape and tumour progression.
©2012 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
