Cell News 4/2015
10
MEETING REPORT
Meeting report of the DGZ study group
‘Signal Transduction’ and its participation in the
19
th
Joint Meeting "Signal Transduction –
Receptors, Mediators and Genes"
Ralf Hass, Klaudia Giehl, Ottmar Janssen
The 19
th
annual Joint Meeting "Signal Transduction – Receptors,
Mediators and Genes" took place in Weimar (November 2-4, 2015)
and was organized by the Signal Transduction Society (STS) to-
gether with signaling study groups of the German Societies for Cell
Biology (DGZ), for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM), for
Immunology (DGfI), and for Pharmacology (DGP). Other financial
and scientific contributors were the SFB 854 “Molecular Organisa-
tion of Cellular Communication in the Immune System” (B. Schra-
ven, Magdeburg), the Berlin branch of the German Consortium for
Translational Cancer Research (DKTK, R. Schäfer, Berlin), and the
German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM, R. Lang,
Erlangen). As in previous years, the conference organisation was
managed by the STS council in collaboration with the chairpersons
of the study groups and members of the STS Advisory Board.
The special focus of the 2015 meeting ‘Tumor Biology’ was coordi-
nated by the DGZ study group Signal Transduction with a number
of exciting keynote lectures. Klaus Pantel (Hamburg) opened this
year’s Joint Meeting by his keynote talk about disseminated tu-
mor cells (DTCs) which are circulating in the periphery following
liberation from the primary tumor and trans-endothelial migra-
tion. These circulating tumor cells (CTCs) eventually form distant
micrometastases, e.g. in the bone marrow, where they hide for a
certain lag period called ‘tumor dormancy’. Most DTCs are carry-
ing a CD44
+
/CD24
-
stem cell phenotype. Prof. Pantel and his team
also developed a method to isolate, enrich, and analyse CTCs from
peripheral blood. In a subsequent workshop, Niels Blüthgen (Ber-
lin) focused on EGF receptors and associated Ras/c-Raf signaling
pathways and feedback loops in tumor cells and computational
models for potential therapeutic interventions. Channing Der (Cha-
pel Hill, USA) talked about different mutations of H-Ras and K-Ras
in distinct cancers and discussed Ras effector proteins as potenti-
al cancer-specififc drug targets and outlined past efforts and fu-
ture concepts in making Ras a druggable protein. Martin Röcken
(Tübingen) presented a keynote talk on melanoma cells and their
potential inflammatory effects inducing a continuous supply of
certain pro-inflammatory cytokines driving carcinogenic processes.
Interestingly, Prof. Röcken also reported that a coordinated simul-
taneous signaling of interferon gamma and tumor necrosis factor
alpha can contribute to tumor cell cycle arrest via p16ink4a. Using
a corresponding melanoma mouse models, Thomas Tüting (Bonn)
presented data about combining oncogenic signaling inhibition
with T cell-directed immunotherapies. In more detail, Prof. Tüting
demonstrated the importance of c-Met-dependent pathways in
HCmel12 melanoma cells for melanoma cell differentiation. Mo-
reover, he pointed out the importance of the c-Met functionality
for the recruitment and activation of neutrophils within the tumor
microenvironment to relay production of anti-tumoral factors such
as TNF alpha or nitric oxide.
Martin Leverkus (Aachen) presented the keynote talk in the work-
shop “Differentiation, Stress and Death“. He reviewed recent
developments regarding different forms of cell death such as
caspase-dependent apoptosis and pyroptosis as compared to cas-
pase-independent forms of cell death including necroptosis, fer-
roptosis, NETosis, etc.. In contrast to tolerogenic death pathways,
uncontrolled cell destruction with inflammatory consequences is
usually observed during necrosis. In the workshop ”Immune Cell
Signaling” Ralf Küppers (Duisburg/Essen) concentrated on B cell
lymphomas and leukemias with Notch mutations and dysregulated
Jak/Stat signaling as well as derailed NF-kB signaling pathways.
Prof. Mina Bissell (Berkeley, USA) received the STS/CCS Honorary Medal
2015 from the STS council and the Editor-in-Chief of CCS (from left to
right: Ottmar Janssen, Stephan Feller (CCS), Mina Bissell, Ralf Hass, Klaudia
Giehl).
