University of Massachusetts Amherst

p53-Dependent Responses to Toxicants in Parous and Nulliparous Breast

Joseph Jerry, Ph.D.
jjerry@vasci.umass.edu

Project Description

This grant proposes a comparative toxicology approach for studying pathways relevant to environmental carcinogenesis of the breast, with emphasis on interactions between environmental carcinogens, the p53 pathway and parity. The strongest support for environmental carcinogenesis comes from mouse models showing that exposures, such as ionizing radiation and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, increase mammary tumor formation. These same experimental models have shown that parity has a p53-mediated, protective effect against carcinogenesis. This grant will attempt to define the mechanisms of environmentally-induced breast cancer with genotype-phenotype correlations that define susceptibility. It will also identify new candidate biomarkers of susceptibility that can be used in future animal and human studies.