IMPPC Fundación Institut de Medicina Predictiva i Personalitzada del Càncer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recent discoveries and improved techniques are creating a new scene, where epigenetic features, such as the structure and activity of chromatin, are being defined. This information will help us to understand how genomic information is regulated and interpreted in physiological situations, such as development; or pathologies, such as cancer.

Our research centers on the molecular characterization of progression in colorectal cancer and the identification of molecular markers with clinical applications (risk, diagnostics and prognostics). Within the fields of Genomics and Epigenomics our current interests are:

• Identification and study of chromosomal regions which are silenced in tumor cells.
• Description of the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate repetitive elements and how these elements participate in biological processes, amongst them cancer.
• Study of the interaction between epigenetics and genetic instability, and how changes in the structure of chromatin can affect the integrity of the genome and facilitate or induce cancer.

Contact - map (at) imppc.org(remove spaces)

Selected publications:

Morales C, Ribas M, Aiza G, Peinado MA. Genetic determinants of methotrexate responsiveness and resistance in colon cancer cells. Oncogene, 24:6842-6847, 2005.

Frigola J, Muñoz M, Clark SJ, Moreno V, Capellà G, Peinado MA. Hypermethylation of theprostacyclin synthase (PTGIS) promoter is a frequent event in colorectal cancer and associated with
aneuploidy. Oncogene, 24:7320-7326, 2005.

Frigola J, Solé X, Paz MF, Moreno V, Esteller M, Capellà G, Peinado MA. DNA hypermethylationand hypomethylation signatures in colorectal cancer. Human Molec Genet, 14:319-326,
2005.

Frigola J, Song J, Stirzaker C, Hinshelwood RA, Peinado MA, Clark SJ. Epigenetic remodeling in colorectal cancer results in coordinate gene suppression across an entire chromosome band. Nature Genet, 38:540-549, 2006.

Rodriguez J, Frigola J, Vendrell E, Risques RA, Fraga MF, Morales C, Moreno V, Esteller M, Capellà G, Ribas M, Peinado MA. Chromosomal instability correlates with genome-wide DNA demethylation in human primary colorectal cancers. Cancer Res, 66:8462-8468, 2006.

The Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium. Insights into social insects from the genome of the honeybee Apis mellifera. Nature, 443:931-949, 2006.

Wang Y, Jordà M, Jones PL, Maleszka R, Ling X, Robertson HM, Mizzen CA, Peinado MA, Robinson GE. Functional CpG methylation system in a social insect. Science, 314:645-647, 2006.

Rodriguez J, Vives L, Jordà M, Morales C, Muñoz M, Vendrell E, Peinado MA. Genome-wide tracking of unmethylated DNA Alu repeats in normal and cancer cells. Nucleic Acids Res, 36:770-784, 2008.

Rodriguez J, Muñoz M, Vives L, Frangou CG, Groudine M, Peinado MA. Bivalent domains enforce transcriptional memory of DNA methylated genes in cancer cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 105:19809-19814, 2008.

Morales C, García MJ, Ribas M, Miró R, Muñoz M, Caldas C, Peinado MA. DHFR amplification and sensitization to methotrexate of methotrexate resistant colon cancer cells. Molec Cancer Therap 8:424-32, 2009.

Mayor R, Casadomé L, Azuara D, Moreno V, Clark SJ, Capellà G, Peinado MA. Long range epigenetic silencing in 2q14.2 affects most human colorectal cancers and may have application as a non-invasive biomarker of disease. British Journal of Cancer advance online publication 21 April 2009; doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6605045