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Organisers
Eric Chevet, Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, France
Violaine Moreau, Unité INSERM, France
Antoine de Daruvar, Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, France
Introduction
The study of signal transduction pathways has become a predominant field in biology. Since the mid-70's where the first signal transduction pathways were mentioned (1), a tremendous effort has been produced by the scientific community to characterize, quantify, modulate those signaling pathways in physiological and pathophysiological systems (2-4). This has resulted in a better understanding of mechanisms regulating cell differentiation/proliferation, organism development and homeostasis as well as the discovery of new class of therapeutic agents which considerably improved disease treatment (5, 6). Although, traditional approaches were for a long time very efficient at investigating the first signaling pathways, the plethora of data generated by various laboratories world-wide has revealed an unpredictable biological intricacy and complexity of these cellular communication paths.
Two major mediators of these signaling pathways have been identified as Guanosine Tri-Phosphate (GTP) and Adenosine Tri-Phosphate (ATP). These two nucleotide tri-phosphate are metabolized by two large classes of enzymes named GTPases or ATPases which are both involved in essential signal transduction pathways. Indeed, GTPases are known to be able to trigger specific biological processes when bound to GTP. As a consequence they can activate effector proteins and lead to downstream activation of specific signaling pathways. On the other hand, ATPases can be involved in many signaling processes ranging from chaperoning signal transduction complexes (e. g. Heat Shock Proteins) to directly triggering conformational changes in proteins by the intermediate of post-translational modifications (e. g. phosphorylation by kinases).
With the development of new technologies such as proteomics or siRNA, and the always increasing number of projects addressing specific questions at the level of genomes or proteomes, it becomes evident that the study of signal transduction pathways using nucleotides tri-phosphate as signal substrate at a proteome scale might reveal new trends or modus operandi in signaling. Of course such approaches require potent information technology management and integration as well as representation tools. This has been particularly well illustrated in several studies such as for instance large scale phosphorylation studies (7) or biological network analyses (8, 9) however in those cases the approach angle was not focused on the use of a common mediator such as nucleotide tri-phosphate.
Our objective will be to discuss how the use of powerful new technological approaches can lead to the discovery of new trends/concepts in signal transduction analyses with focus/emphasis on the necessity of nucleotide tri-phosphate hydrolysis for these pathways to operate. This represents a novel initiative to give an alternative look at signal transduction pathways.
References: 1. Robertson, A. & Grutsch, J. (1974) Life Sci 15, 1031-1043; 2. Pawson, T. & Warner, N. (2007) Oncogene 26, 1268-1275; 3. Pawson, T. & Scott, J. D. (2005) Trends Biochem Sci 30, 286-290; 4. Pawson, T. & Linding, R. (2005) FEBS Lett 579, 1808-1814; 5. Nelson, M. H. & Dolder, C. R. (2006) Ann Pharmacother 40, 261-269; 6. Kimura, S., Ashihara, E., & Maekawa, T. (2006) Curr Pharm Biotechnol 7, 371-379; 7. Villen, J., Beausoleil, S. A., Gerber, S. A., & Gygi, S. P. (2007) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104, 1488-1493; 8. Ishii, N., Nakahigashi, K., Baba, T., Robert, M., Soga, T., Kanai, A., Hirasawa, T., Naba, M., Hirai, K., Hoque, A. , et al. (2007) Science; 9. Hu, Z., Killion, P. J., & Iyer, V. R. (2007) Nat Genet.
Draft programme will be available shortly.
Invited speakers:
Georges Baffet, Inserm, Rennes, France
Bernd Bodenmiller, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Marie-Elaine Caruso, McGill University, Montreal , Canada
Jeroen Den Hertog, Hubrecht Lab, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Toby Gibson, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany
Lars Jensen, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany
Ulrike Korf, DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany
Terence Rabbitts, MRC Lab, Cambridge , UK
Raphael Roduit, IRO, Sion, Switzerland
Jeremy Simpson, EMBL, Heidelberg , Germany
Anne Spang, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Alfonso Valencia, CNIO, Madrid, Spain
Venue
The meeting will be held in Bordeaux, France.
Information & Registration
Registration: Registration has now closed.
Accommodation & Travel: Further details including how to get there and where to stay can be found here.
