Cooperation between Wnt and Notch signalling in human breast cancer
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* Corresponding author: Giovanna M Collu giovanna.collu-2@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Matrix Research, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK
Breast Cancer Research 2007, 9:105 doi:10.1186/bcr1671
Published: 11 May 2007Abstract
The Wnt and Notch signalling pathways play major roles in mammary gland development and tumourigenesis. During development, these pathways have opposing effects. However, in a recent paper Ayyanan and coworkers show that expression of Wnt1 is sufficient to transform primary human mammary epithelial cells, and that this is in part due to activation of the Notch pathway. This indicates that during tumourigenesis the two pathways cooperate. Here we ask why activation of Wnt signalling alone is sufficient to cause transformation; whether there is evidence for inhibitory crosstalk between the pathways during tumourigenesis; and whether cooperation between these pathways occurs in other forms of cancer.