Research Summary

Cadherins are proteins that mediate cell-cell adhesion and serve as critical morphoregulators during embryogenesis. They also are required for the normal structure and function of adult tissues, regulating diverse processes such as survival, proliferation and differentiation of normal cells and migration and invasion of tumor cells.  Tumor cells frequently exhibit missing or abnormal cadherin expression, and past work by our lab has focused on understanding the role cadherins play in regulating tumor cell behavior. 

Our lab has a longstanding interest in the role cadherins play in promoting cell differentiation, particularly myogenesis.  Current research efforts are focused on understanding the earliest events involved in skeletal and cardiac muscle development, i.e., the epithelial to mesenchymal transition that occurs during gastrulation when epiblast cells ingress through the primitive streak and switch cadherin expression from E- to N-cadherin.  Working with chicken embryonic stem cells we are defining the factors and conditions required to induce the E- to N-cadherin switch and to direct the cells to either the skeletal or cardiac muscle cell fate.  

Selected Publications

1.     Radice, G.L., Sauer, C.L., Kostetskii, I., Peralta Soler, A., Knudsen, K.A. (2003) Inappropriate P-cadherin expression in the mouse mammary epithelium is compatible with normal mammary gland function. Differentiation 71:361-373.

2.     Gerhart, J., Neely, C., Stewart, B., Perlman, J., Beckmann, D., Knudsen, K.A., George-Weinstein. M. (2004) MyoD positive epiblast cells recruit pluripotent cells to the skeletal muscle lineage.  J. Cell Biol.  164:739-746

3.     Knudsen, K.A. and Wheelock, M.J. (2005) Cadherins and the Mammary Gland. J Cell. Biochem 95:488-496.

4.     Knudsen, K.A., Sauer, C., Johnson, K.R., Wheelock, M.J.  Effect of N-cadherin misexpression by the mammary epithelium in mice, J Cell. Biochem, in press.

5. Kim, Y.J., Sauer, C., Testa, K., Wahl, J.K., Svoboda, R.A., Johnson, K.R., Wheelock, M.J., Knudsen, K.A. Modulating the strength of cadherin adhesion:evidence for a novel adhesion complex, J Cell Science, in press.

Spring Colloquium 2004 Virtual Poster

Prognostic Markers in Breast Cancer