Lampe, Paul

The Lampe laboratory investigates the control of cell growth both at the cell biological/ mechanistic level and through cancer biomarker discovery. We study the cell biology connecting gap junctions and intercellular communication with the control of cell growth, the cell cycle and, how the relationship is disrupted during carcinogenesis. Our interest in gap junctions as potential biomarkers of cancer and, more recently, the advent of new screening methodologies has expanded our efforts into broad proteomic screens for potential cancer biomarkers using mass spectrometry and large format antibody array technologies. We study potential biomarkers for ovarian, pancreas, colon and breast cancer. Our ongoing cell/molecular research involves the regulation of gap junction assembly and function. Gap junctions allow diffusion of small molecules (<1000 MW) between adjacent cells via matched cell-cell membrane channels. Vertebrate gap junctions are composed of proteins derived from the connexin gene family, and our results indicate that gap junction formation and degradation are highly regulated via protein kinases at various stages of the assembly process and the cell cycle. Ongoing studies include determination of the cellular localization of different connexin phosphorylation events and the specific serine substrates that are phosphorylated within connexins at different stages of the cell cycle.