Assoc. Prof. Thanabalu, Thirumaran
Associate Professor
Phone: (65) 6316 2832
Email: [email protected]
N-WASP (Neural Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome protein) regulates actin cytoskeleton remodelling, thus play a critical process in cell adhesion, cell migration and cell proliferation. In late-stage cancers N-WASP is critical for metastasis as it plays and essential role in invadopodium formation. Cancer patients with reduced N-WASP expression were found to have poor prognosis. Thus N-WASP plays both tumour suppressor and promoter role. We have shown that N-WASP knockout in mice promote cell proliferation, and the mice develop Atopic Dermatitis like skin condition. We have also shown that N-WASP knockout enhanced cancer pathogenesis in mice with cancer induced by oncogene expression and N-WASP overexpression in cancer cell lines reduced cell proliferation consistent with N-WASP tumour suppressor role. We have also found that N-WASP knockout mice are Refractory to chemical carcinogen induced skin cancer. We are currently characterising the molecular mechanism responsible for attenuation of cell proliferation by overexpression of N-WASP and the cancer resistance of N-WASP knockout mice using molecular and cell biology techniques.
Research Areas
Actin Cytoskeleton, Cell Biology, Cancer Biology, Skin homeostasis
Research Fellow
Research Assistant
PhD Student
- Kalailingam, P., Verma, A., Lee, Y.H., and Thanabalu, T. “Conditional Knockout of N‑WASP Enhanced the Formation of Keratinizing Squamous Cell Carcinoma Induced by KRas^G12D.” Cancers (Basel) 15 (2023): 4455. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15184455
- Lee, Y.H., Kalailingam, P., Delcour, J.A., Fogliano, V., and Thanabalu, T. “Olive‑Derived Antioxidant Dietary Fiber Modulates Gut Microbiota Composition and Attenuates Atopic Dermatitis‑Like Inflammation in Mice.” Molecular Nutrition & Food Research 67 (2023): e2200127. https://doi.org/10.1002/mnfr.202200127
- Chung, Y.J., Salvi, A., Kalailingam, P., Alnawaz, M., Tan, S.H., Pan, J.Y., Tan, N.S., and Thanabalu, T. “N‑WASP Attenuates Cell Proliferation and Migration through ERK2‑Dependent Enhanced Expression of TXNIP.” Biology (Basel) 11 (2022): 582. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11040582
- Kalailingam, P., Tan, H.B., Pan, J.Y., Tan, S.H., and Thanabalu, T. “Overexpression of CDC42SE1 in A431 Cells Reduced Cell Proliferation by Inhibiting the Akt Pathway.” Cells 8 (2019): 117. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells8020117
- Kalailingam, P., Tan, H.B., Jain, N., Sng, M.K., Chan, J.S.K., Tan, N.S., and Thanabalu, T. “Conditional Knock Out of N‑WASP in Keratinocytes Causes Skin Barrier Defects and Atopic Dermatitis‑Like Inflammation.” Scientific Reports 7 (2017): 7311. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-07125-8