Congratulations to the Hatzios Lab for their most recent publication

An infection-induced oxidation site regulates legumain processing and tumor growth

Yekaterina Kovalyova, Daniel W. Bak, Elizabeth M. Gordon, Connie Fung, Jennifer H. B. Shuman, Timothy L. Cover, Manuel R. Amieva, Eranthie Weerapana & Stavroula K. Hatzios

A hallmark of cancer-causing infections is oxidative stress, which occurs when our cells come into contact with oxygen-containing molecules called reactive oxygen species (or ROS) that can damage DNA and proteins inside cells.

Both types of damage occur in cancer, but far less is known about the proteins that are targeted by ROS because it is challenging to identify them.

The lab of Stavroula Hatzios, assistant professor in the departments of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and of Chemistry, has developed a chemical strategy for detecting such proteins in infected cells.

The findings, which appear in Nature Chemical Biology, are thought to be the first to implicate infection-induced protein damage in a tumor growth pathway.

Click here for the full story highlighted in West Campus News.