Current & Future Research

1. Taking as an example plastins and zyxin family members, we investigate at molecular and cellular levels, how actin-associated proteins regulate the assembly of cytoskeleton complexes implicated in cell functions such as adhesion, migration and differentiation/dedifferentiation and gene regulation. Zyxin family members are LIM-domain proteins that act as bi-functional environmental sensors playing an important role in cell plasticity. We and other have previously shown that zyxin family members regulate actin assembly in the cytoplasm (Fradelizi et al. Nature Cell Biol. 2001. 3:699-707) and act as transcription regulator in the nucleus (Petit et al. Mol. Biol. Cell. 2000. 11: 117-129). The properties of Tes, a novel tumour suppressor protein of the zyxin family, are currently studied within the frame of an interdisciplinary Human Frontier Science Program project aiming at reconstructing actin-based motility in a cell-like environment (collaboration with Dr Cécile Sykes, Curie Institute, Paris, www.hfsp.org).
2. We investigate how cytoskeleton circuits contribute to disease, with a specific focus on cancer, an inflammatory-driven disease (for review see Giganti and Friederich. 2003. in Prog. Cell Cycle Res, 5:511-525). We have designed and produced a function-focused microarray that will be further extended to 1500 genes, including genes of major regulatory pathways (Muller et al. 2007. BMC Genomics). This microarray is currently used to identify changes in the repertoire of expressed cytoskeletal genes and associated regulatory pathways that contribute to epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), a key step of epithelial cancer cell invasion. Genes of interest are further studied in cell-based functional assays ( FNR project 01/04/09, BIOSAN , collaboration with Dr Laurent Vallar, Microarray Centre, CRP-Santé, Luxembourg, Dr Olivier Poch IGBMC, Strasbourg). In the future, this project will be extended to the identification of non-coding miRNA that contribute to EMT.
3. Modelling approaches (e.g. Monte Carlo approach) for the analysis of complex biological systems such as the actin cytoskeleton will be further developed (collaboration with the Systems Analysis Department of the State University of Belarus, Minsk, scientific exchange granted by the European Science Foundation, www.ESF.org ).