Proteases and Cancer Methods and Protocols

Proteases decisively contribute to cancer development and promotion by regulating the activities of growth factors/cytokines and signaling receptors, as well as the composition of the extracellular matrix, thereby suppressing cell death pathways and activating cell survival pathways. In Proteases and Cancer: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers bring together a wide range of current, complimentary techniques that have been developed for the specific detection and analysis of proteases and their activities in cancer biology. The volume covers vital topics including the application of proteomics technologies for the detection of protease expression in tumors, imaging proteases by activity profiling, proteomics technologies for the identification of biological substrates, detection of cell surface proteolysis, imaging of protease activity, the use of transgenic mice to determine protease function in tumor initiation and progression, and the development of anti-protease therapies for cancer. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology™ series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

Authoritative and easy to use, Proteases and Cancer: Methods and Protocols is an ideal guide for scientists who wish to pursue the study of this important branch of cancer research and the development of unique innovative technologies to aid in that study.

Chapter 1. Delineating Protease Functions During Cancer Development Nesrine I. Affara, Pauline Andreu, and Lisa M. Coussens Chapter 2. Proteolytic Systems: Constructing Degradomes Gonzalo R. Ordóñez, Xose S. Puente, Víctor Quesada, and Carlos López-Otín Chapter 3. Microarrays for Protease Detection in Tissues and Cells Kamiar Moin, Donald Schwartz, Stephanie Mullins, and Bonnie F. Sloane Chapter 4. Positional Scanning Synthetic Combinatorial Libraries for Substrate Profiling Eric L. Schneider and Charles S. Craik Chapter 5. Mixture-Based Peptide Libraries for Identifying Protease Cleavage Motifs Benjamin E. Turk Chapter 6. High Throughput Substrate Phage Display for Protease Profiling Boris Ratnikov, Piotr Cieplak, and Jeffrey W. Smith Chapter 7. Imaging Specific Cell Surface Protease Activity in Living Cells Using Reengineered Bacterial Cytotoxins John P. Hobson, Shihui Liu, Stephen H. Leppla, and Thomas H. Bugge Chapter 8. Cell-Based Identification of Natural Substrates and Cleavage-Sites for Extracellular Proteases by SILAC Proteomics Magda Gioia, Leonard J. Foster, and Christopher M. Overall Chapter 9. Optical Proteolytic Beacons for In Vivo Detection of Matrix Metalloproteinase Activity J. Oliver McIntyre and Lynn M. Matrisian Chapter 10. Dissecting the Urokinase Activation Pathway Using Urokinase-Activated Anthrax Toxin Shihui Liu, Thomas H. Bugge, Arthur E. Frankel, and Stephen H. Leppla Chapter 11. On-Demand Cleavable Linkers for Radioimmunotherapy Pappanaicken R. Kumaresan, Juntao Luo, and Kit S. Lam