Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Tulane University Health Sciences Center
1430 Tulane Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70112-2699


Mission:

Characterization of the factors affecting the recruitment, migration and engraftment of adult human stem cells into tumors.

Director:



Aline B. Scandurro, PhD

Background of Director:
Associate Professor Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology
Recent publications:

1. Seth B. Coffelt, Ruth S. Waterman, Luisa Florez, Kevin J. Zwezdaryk, Kerstin Honer zu Bentrup, Suzanne L. Tomchuck, Heather L. LaMarca, Yanira I. Gutierrez-Figueroa, Elizabeth S. Danka, and Aline B. Scandurro. Ovarian cancers overexpress the antimicrobial protein hCAP-18 and its derivative LL-37 increases ovarian cancer cell proliferation and invasion. Int J Cancer. 2008 Mar 1;122(5):1030-9.
2. Kevin J. Zwezdaryk, Seth B. Coffelt, Yanira G. Figueroa, Juliet Liu, Donald G. Phinney, Heather L. LaMarca, Luisa Florez, Cindy B. Morris, Gary W. Hoyle and Aline B. Scandurro. Erythropoietin a Hypoxia-Regulated Factor Elicits a Pro-Angiogenic Program in Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells. Experimental Hematology. 2007 Apr;35(4):640-52.
3. Suzanne L. Tomchuck, Kevin J. Zwezdaryk, Seth B. Coffelt, Ruth S. Waterman, and Aline B. Scandurro. Toll-Like Receptors on Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Drive their Stress Signal Responses. Stem Cells. 2008 Jan;26(1):99-107. Epub 2007 Oct 4.
4. Seth B. Coffelt and Aline B. Scandurro. (2008) Tumors sound the alarmin(s). Cancer Res. Aug 15;68(16):6482-5.
5. Seth B. Coffelt, Ruth S. Waterman, Kevin J. Zwezdaryk, Kerstin Honer zu Bentrup, Suzanne L. Tomchuck, and Aline B. Scandurro. (2008) The human pro-inflammatory peptide, LL-37, recruits multipotent mesenchymal stem/progenitor cells to ovarian tumors and promotes their differentiation and immunomodulatory properties. Submitted PNAS.

1. Established that toll-like receptors on adult human stem cells affect their migration and immune modulating capabilities.
2. Established that erythropoietin elicits a pro-angiogenic program in adult human stem cells.
3. Established that the pro-inflammatory LL-37 peptide recruits adult human stem cells to ovarian tumors.

Current Projects:
Essential to achieving optimal stem cell-based therapies is the ability to deliver these cells in such a way as to maximize their recruitment, migration, engraftment and immune modulation in the targeted sites. Currently there is little known regarding this in hMSCs. Our laboratory seeks to build on our preliminary results that implicate TLRs in driving the migration of stimulated hMSCs toward stress molecules and manipulate their immune modulating function.

The goals of our Pro-Inflammatory LL-37 and Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Ovarian Cancer project are to:

• demonstrate that secreted LL-37 drives the recruitment and pro-angiogenesis potential of hMSC
• determine if hCAP-18/LL-37 expression is affected by hypoxia
• analyze the molecular interplay between ovarian tumor cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and mesenchymal stem cells that favors growth of ovarian tumor cells
• explore the principle that LL-37 is critical in ovarian cancer etiology by manipulation of its expression or the expression of its receptor within modified MSC delivered in a murine ovarian cancer xenograft model
• delineate the role of LL-37 in ovarian tumor progression by manipulation of its expression within ovarian cancer cells engrafted in the murine xenograft model