Mesothelioma

Oncogenesis of malignant pleural mesothelioma: mechanisms and therapies

Malignant pleuralmesothelioma (MPM) is a neoplastic disease of the pleura strongly associated with exposure to asbestos fibers. Present chemotherapeutic regimens are marginally efficient, tumor cells being particularly resistant to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. We hypothesized that unresponsiveness of tumors to conventional therapeutic agents is due to inappropriate gene expression resulting from epigenetic modifications and leading to transcriptional silencing. We have demonstrated that lysine deacetylase inhibitors improve efficacy of standard treatments of different thoracic cancers.

Ongoing projects include (1) Fine-tuned regulation of DNA damage tolerance by ubiquitination, (2) Polycomb repressor complex mediated polarisation of tumoricidal macrophages in malignant mesothelioma, (3) Histone deacetylase inhibitors overcome resistance to MPM chemotherapy