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Sumoylated Tβl1/Tβlr1 Interacts With Β-Catenin In Palmar Fascia Fibrosis: A Novel Therapeutic Target, Kevin Ho

2019 Undergraduate Awards

Dupuytren’s Disease (DD) is a benign fibrosis of the palmar fascia, the connective tissue beneath the skin of palm and digits. DD leads to loss of hand function and affects 4 - 6% of the US population alone. Current treatments focus on removing diseased tissue through surgery —however, post-surgery disease recurrence rates exceed 30% with no known cure. Previous studies found that fibroproliferative diseases such as DD contain fibroblasts with abnormally high levels of β-catenin, similar to certain malignancies such as colon cancer. In colon cancer cells, nuclear translocation of β-catenin trans-activates genes responsible for cellular proliferation, and this process …