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Erika Bach

Erika Bach

Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology

Keywords
cancer, developmental genetics, metabolism, pharmacology, stem cell biology, JAK/STAT signaling, stem cell self renewal, development
Summary

1. How does the JAK/STAT pathway regulate stem cells numbers? Regulating the number of stem cells is a primary mechanism by which homeostasis is maintained and oncogenesis is prevented. Stem cells divide to produce daughter cells that renew the stem cell pool or that regenerate tissue by differentiating. The choice between self-renewal and differentiation must be tightly controlled as increasing the stem cell pool provides a condition for oncogenesis. Tumors have cancer stem cells that self-renew and establish new tumors at low numbers. One of the critical regulators of stem cell numbers in mammals is the JAK/STAT pathway. Furthermore, dominant-active mutations in jak and stat genes cause cancer, and Stat3 is a target for therapeutic intervention since its ablation blocks the growth of human cancer cells. Despite these compelling observations, the mechanisms utilized by this pathway to regulate stem cell numbers in mammals have not yet been elucidated, in part due to the redundancy of 4 jak and 7 stat genes. Drosophila provides an ideal system to study how JAK/STAT signaling regulates stem cell numbers, as this function is conserved in several Drosophila tissues, including testis and eye. Unlike the redundancy of the mammalian system, Drosophila has only one jak and one stat gene (called stat92E), which allows facile in vivo analysis. Despite these advantages, nothing is known mechanistically about how this pathway controls stem cell populations in Drosophila. Previous work has shown that over-expression of the cytokine Unpaired, which activates JAK/STAT signaling, leads to an expansion of stem/progenitor cells in the eye and testis. We find that these overgrowths depend on activation of Stat92E within stem cells. Our current hypothesis is that Stat92E must regulate three distinct processes in stem cells in order to regulate their numbers: it must increase cellular mass and accelerate cell cycle progression and, after mitosis, promote self-renewal in some daughter cells. Since Stat92E is a transcription factor, discrete Stat92E target genes should mediate its effects on these processes. We have identified several genes with human homologs that may lie directly downstream of Stat92E and may regulate self-renewal, cellular growth and cell cycle in stem cells.

Phone

212-263-5963

Fax

212-263-8166

Academic office

450 East 29th St, ACLS East Tower

9, 934

New York, NY 10016

Lab Website
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These focus areas and their associated publications are derived from medical subject headings from PubMed.
represents one publication
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*Due to PubMed processing times, the most recent publications may not be reflected in the timeline.
Herrera, Salvador C; Bach, Erika A

Methods in molecular biology. 2023 Jul; 2677:139-149

Tseng, Chen-Yuan; Burel, Michael; Cammer, Michael; Harsh, Sneh; Flaherty, Maria Sol; Baumgartner, Stefan; Bach, Erika A

Developmental cell. 2022 Jan 10; 57(1):80-94.e7

Herrera, Salvador C; Sainz de la Maza, Diego; Grmai, Lydia; Margolis, Shally; Plessel, Rebecca; Burel, Michael; O'Connor, Michael; Amoyel, Marc; Bach, Erika A

Developmental cell. 2021 Aug 23; 56(16):2284-2294.e6

Herrera, Salvador C; Bach, Erika A

International journal of molecular sciences. 2021 May 24; 22(11):

Grmai, Lydia; Harsh, Sneh; Lu, Sean; Korman, Aryeh; Deb, Ishan B; Bach, Erika A

G3 : genes - genomes - genetics. 2021 Apr 15; 11(4):

Sitaram, Poojitha; Lu, Sean; Harsh, Sneh; Herrera, Salavdor C; Bach, Erika A

G3 : genes - genomes - genetics. 2019 Aug 08; 9(8):2609-2622

Bailetti, Alessandro A; Negrón-Piñeiro, Lenny J; Dhruva, Vishal; Harsh, Sneh; Lu, Sean; Bosula, Aisha; Bach, Erika A

Disease models & mechanisms. 2019 May 30; 12(5):

Herrera, Salvador C; Bach, Erika A

Development. 2019 Jan 29; 146(2):