Cell News 01/2020
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It is a good tradition that the DGZ study group „Signal
Transduction” is a co-organizer of the annual meeting “Signal
Transduction – Receptors, Mediators and Genes” of the Signal
Transduction Society (STS). The program of the 23rd Meet-
ing held in November, 4 to 6, 2019 in the Leonardo Hotel in
Weimar, was structured into 8 workshops. Each session was
opened by one or two invited scientists introducing the respec-
tive workshop in their keynote presentations, followed by three
to four speakers chosen from the submitted abstracts. This
year, special emphasis was given to the topic ‘Trends in Cancer
and Infection’, of which various aspects were enlightened in
the three morning sessions. One of these, the workshop on
‘Tumor Biology and Immunity’ was organized by the DGZ study
group, who invited Lionel Larue (Orsay, France) as a keynote
presenter. All other workshops were organized by the STS with
help from the German Societies for Biochemistry and Molec-
ular Biology (GBM), Pharmacology (DGP), and Immunology
(DGfI). The collaborative research center (SFB) 854 “Molecular
Organization of Cellular Communication in the Immune Sys-
tem” (B. Schraven, Magdeburg, DE), the study group “Infection
Immunology” of the DGfI and the German Society for Hygiene
and Microbiology (DGHM) as well as the study group B cells of
the DGfI provided further scientific and financial support.
In keeping with the focus topic, a special workshop had been
organized together with the German Center for Infection
Research (DZIF) as the opening session of the meeting on
Monday morning. Céu Figueiredo (Porto, Portugal) presented
her work focusing on gastric cancers which can be attribut-
ed to infections with the pathogenic bacterium
Helicobacter
pylori
, meanwhile classified as class I carcinogen. Interestingly,
patients suffering from gastric cancer show a lower microbial
diversity and a different microbiota composition as compared
to patients suffering from chronic gastritis. By assessing the
gastric microbiota composition, it was possible to discriminate
between chronic gastritis and gastric cancer. Mathias Heiken-
wälder (Heidelberg, Germany) presented new results on liver
cancer, in which different types of immune cells are found to
drive progression from nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) to
cancer. Heikenwälder’s group developed several mouse models
to study the progression from obesity-associated NASH to
HCC. In the livers of these mice, cytotoxic T cells and NKT cells
were found to be activated and to promote HCC development.
Heikenwälder demonstrated during his talk that antiplatelet
therapy can be an option to treat the described intrahepatic
inflammation in NASH prior to HCC transformation. The next
workshop on ‘Cytokines, Growth Factors and Receptors’ was
introduced by Anne Ridley (Bristol, UK). Ridley’s group per-
formed RNAi screens of various Rho GTPase signaling networks
in PC3 prostate cancer cells to identify Rho GTPase networks
in cell migration and identified RhoH as an unexpected hit.
RhoH may affect cancer cell migration and invasiveness by
facilitating correct localization and function of Rac1 and PAK2.
Four talks selected from the abstracts completed this session.
The afternoon session on Monday focused on ‘Differentiation,
Stress and Death’. Stefan Ludwig (Münster, DE) presented the
Raf/MEK/ERK/Rsk pathway as a therapeutic target in influen-
za infection. The viral hemagglutinin (HA) initiates this MAP
kinase signaling and inhibition of the HA/MAPK pathway by
siRNA against ERK1/2 or by MEK inhibitors decreased nuclear
export of viral ribonucleoproteins (vRNP) by blocking Rsk-me-
diated phosphorylation of vRNP. Because MEK inhibitors have
already been shown to be well tolerated in humans they are
promising antiviral drugs against influenza.
The first workshop on the second day was attributed to the
focus topic ‘Cancer and Infection’ and broach the issue ‘Tumor
biology and Immunity’, organized by the DGZ and the DGHM.
Lionel Larue, Institute Curie (Orsay, FR), focused in his talk on
skin cancer. Although therapy options improved over the last
ten years, there is still a huge need for efficient treatment op-
tions. L. Larue investigates the establishment and the renewal
of the melanocyte lineage. In his talk he spoke about two
Meeting Report DGZ study group „Signal Transduction”
from the 23rd Meeting on Signal Transduction 2019 –
Trends in Cancer and Infection
STS Honorary Medal given to Prof. Dr. Alfred Wittinghofer (2. from
right) (from left to right: Ingo Schmitz, Detlef Neumann, Klaudia Giehl
(STS-council), Gudula Schmidt (laudator), Katharina Hieke-Kubatzky
(STS-council)
MEETING REPORT
