Our laboratory is interested in relationships between iron metabolism and tumor growth. This interest generates three current projects: 

·         Natural and synthetic cancer chemopreventives and their relationship to iron chelation.

·         Cancer angiogenesis and iron metabolism.  Angiogenesis plays a key role in tumor growth, since the appropriate delivery of nutrients through blood vessels is important to tumor growth and oxygenation. We have discovered that ferritin, a protein best known for its iron storage and detoxification properties, has an additional, less well-studied property: it regulates processes in angiogenesis by interacting with an anti-angiogenic protein, HKa. We are currently investigating the implications and mechanism of this effect. Over the long term, these studies may suggest novel targets for modulating angiogenesis in vivo. 

·         A novel bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) antagonist in cancer. We have identified a BMP antagonist protein that is down-regulated in several types of cancer, including kidney cancer and breast cancer. Current studies are exploring the hypothesis that this protein is a new tumor suppressor. 

In addition to these projects, we have recently embarked on an exciting new venture with the Nanotechnology Center at Wake Forest to study novel nanoparticles as anti-tumor agents. 

Updated July 2008

Recent Publications

Blish, K., Wang, W., Willingham, M., Du, W., Birse, C.E., Krishnan, S.R., Brown, J.C., Hawkins, G.A., Garvin, AJ., D’Agostino, R.B., Torti, F.M. and Torti, S.V. A Human Bone Morphogenetic Protein Antagonist is Downregulated in Renal Cancer. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 19:457-464, 2008.

Coffman, L., Brown, J.C., Johnson, D.A., Parthasarathy, N., D’Agostino, R.B., Lively, M.O., Hua, X., Tilley, S.L. Muller-Esterl, W., Willingham, M., Torti, F.M., Torti, S.V. Cleavage of High Molecular Weight Kininogen by Elastase and Tryptase is Inhibited by Ferritin. Amer J. Physiol, Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, 294:L505-L515, 2008.

Jiao, Y., Wilkinson, J., Di, X., Wang, W., Hatcher, H., Kock, N.D., D’Agostino, R., Knovich, M.A., Torti, F.M., Torti, S.V. Curcumin, a cancer chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic agent, is a biologically active iron chelator. Blood, 113(2):462-9, 2009.

Coffman LG, Parsonage D, D'Agostino R Jr, Torti FM, Torti SV. Regulatory effects of ferritin on angiogenesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. Jan 13;106(2):570-5. 2009. Commentary in Proc Natl Acad Sci USA Feb 10:106(6):1683-4, 2009

Hower, V., Mendes, P., Torti, FM, Laubenbacher, R., Akman, S., Shulaev, V., Torti, S.V. A general map of mammalian iron metabolism and tissue-specific subnetworks. Molecular BioSystems, 5, 422 – 443, 2009.

Burke, A., Ding, X., Singh, R., Kraft, R.A., Levi-Polyachenko, N., Rylander, M.N., Szot, C., Buchanan, C., Whitney, J., Fisher, J., et al. (2009). Long-term survival following a single treatment of kidney tumors with multiwalled carbon nanotubes and near-infrared radiation. . Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:12897-12902, 2009