Research objectives

Translation and cancer

The MacInnes group is focused on utilizing model organisms to establish the molecular mechanisms by which certain gene mutations lead to malignancy. Using the zebrafish as a model organism, we are studying how mutations in genes involved in the protein translation machinery (such as ribosomal protein genes and ribosomal RNA processing genes) result in disease. It has been previously established in humans that mutations in such genes can lead to a number of different diseases, although interestingly all these disease result in a predisposition to leukemia. We have lines of zebrafish that harbor mutations in some of these genes and develop malignancies, and we have also previously established that the tumor cells with ribosomal protein gene mutations lose the ability to synthesize the tumor suppressor p53 protein (MacInnes et al., PNAS, 2008). The group is currently using mutant zebrafish coupled with human cell lines derived from patients to establish the exact mechanisms by which these mutations in ribosomal protein (and other) genes result in cancer.

About the group leader
Publication list