Hematologic & Oncogenic Disease

Shan Lu

Shan Lu, PhD

Pathology & Lab Med

Assistant Professor

  • GRI-A 259
  • 2120 E. Galbraith Rd
  • Reading OH 45215
  • (513)558-5109
  • shan.lu@uc.edu

Research Summary

Dr. Lu is trained as a molecular endocrinologist during graduate study in the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology, University of Texas Medical School at Houston and postdoctoral training in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr Lu's current research program is to determine the role of Vav3 oncogene in steroid-related prostate and breast cancers. Dr. Lu's lab identified that Vav3 oncogene, a quanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) for Rho family GTPases, is overexpressed in androgen-independent prostate cancer cells and in human prostate cancer. Further analysis revealed that Vav3 stimulates growth of prostate cancer cells, interacts with and activates androgen receptor. Vav3, as a signal transducer, also upregulates AR activity partially via PI3K-Akt signaling. Furthermore, Vav3 potentiates epidermal growth factor (EGF) activity for stimulation of cell growth and AR activation in prostate cancer cells. In addition, Dr. Lu's lab found that Vav3 is overexpressed in human breast cancer and complexes with estrogen receptor and enhances its activity.

Current research projects include:

  1. Elucidation of the signaling pathways of Vav3 in prostate cancer.
  2. Determination of the role of Vav3 overexpression in prostate cancer development and progression to the androgen-independent status in mouse prostate cancer model and in human prostate cancer specimens.
  3. Investigation of the impact of inflammation on prostate cancer development and progression.
  4. Determination of the role of Vav3 in estrogen receptor activation and breast cancer.

Selected Publications

Liu,Y., Mo,J.Q., Hu,Q., Boivin,G., Levin,L., Lu.S., Yang,D., Dong,Z.Y., and Lu,S. (2008) Targeted overexpression of Vav3 oncogene in prostatic epithelium induces nonbacterial prostatitis and prostate cancer. Cancer Res. 68: 6396-6406

Lee,K, Liu,Y., Mo,J.Q., Zhang,J., Dong, Z.Y., Lu, S. (2008) Vav3 oncogene activates estrogen receptor and its overexpression may be involved in human breast cancer. BCM cancer. 8:158

Lu, S., Wang, A., Lu, S., and Dong, Z.Y. (2007) DL3 is a novel anti-androgen and interrupts androgen receptor signaling in prostate cancer cells. Mol. Cancer Ther. 6(7):2057-2064

Lu,S., Lee,J., Revelo,M., Wang,X., Lu,S., and Dong,Z.Y. (2007) Smad3 is overexpressed in advanced human prostate cancer and necessary for progressive growth of prostate cancer cells in nude mice. Clinical Cancer Research. 13(19):5692-702.

Dong,Z.Y., Liu,Y., Lee,K., Lu,S., Wang, A., Wang,L.H., Revelo,M., and Lu,S. (2006) Vav3 oncogene is overexpressed and regulates cell growth and androgen receptor activity in human prostate cancer. Mol. Endo. 20:2315-2325.

 

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