Membrane-proximal binding of STAT3 revealed by cancer-associated receptor variants

Vijay K Ulaganathan; Axel Ullrich

doi:10.1080/23723556.2016.1145176

Membrane-proximal binding of STAT3 revealed by cancer-associated receptor variants

Mol Cell Oncol. 2016 Feb 24;3(3):e1145176. doi: 10.1080/23723556.2016.1145176. eCollection 2016 May.

Authors

Vijay K Ulaganathan¹, Axel Ullrich¹

Affiliation

¹ Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Department of Molecular Biology , Martinsried, Germany.

Abstract

In cancer biology, somatic mutations in the extracellular (ligand binding) and cytosolic (functional/catalytic) domains are pursued with great interest. However, in our recent publication we report that germline mutations in the membrane-proximal region of type I receptors are able to modulate the amplitude of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling in cells. This unexpected finding has implications for the prognosis of heritable cancer.

Keywords: Cancer-associated germline variant; FGFR4 Arg388 variant; Membrane-proximal STAT3 signaling; SNP rs351855; STAT3 signaling; Transmembrane variants; cancer prognosis; common germline variant; gain-of-function FGFR4 gene variant.