McCabe, Nora
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Research Interests
My research interests are in the area of breast cancer and in particular with the production of a cancer cell associated fibronectin isoform called oncofetal fibronectin.
This isoform, was previously found only in normal fetal tissue and in the stroma of cancer tissue, and to date, it has a highly speculative function. Recently, I have found oncofetal fibronectin expression in reduction mammoplastic tissue, which is traditionally used as normal control tissue in breast cancer studies. Additionally, in recent collaborative work we have found that not only do proliferating endothelial cells express this isoform, but that they also have the ability to sequester it from the microenvironment. Presently I am focusing on elucidating the control of oncofetal fibronectin expression. In addition I am interested in the long term effects and side effects of tamoxifen administration in both pre- and post-menopausal breast cancer patients. Some data indicate that women who have been given tamoxifen for longer than five years, present with an increased incidence of other cancers and other side-effects, while other recent studies indicate that women at high risk, who have taken tamoxifen for five years have a reduced incidence of cancer in this time period. A possible explanation for the diverse effects of tamoxifen is the fact that tamoxifen can exert either an estrogenic or an antiestrogenic effect on different cell types, and the mode is largely dependent on the endogenous estrogen concentration. The focus of my research is therefore to determine under what estrogen conditions tamoxifen exerts its agonistic and antagonistic effects and further to determine what effects these actions have on different cell types.

Publications
McCabe, N.R., M. Kipiniak, H. Kobayashi, M. Thirman, H.J. Gill, J.D. Rowley, M.O. Diaz, 1994. DNA rearrangements and altered transcripts of the MLL gene are observed in a human cell line Karpas 45 which as a t(X;11) (q13;q23) chromosome translocation. Genes, Chromosomes and Cancer 9:221-224.

Mbangkollo, D., R. Burnett, N. McCabe, M. Thirman, H. Gill, H. Yu, J.D. Rowley, M.O. Diaz, 1995. The human MLL gene: nucleotide sequence, homology to the Drosophila trx zinc-finger domain, and alternative splicing., DNA and Cell Biology 14:475-483.

Ziljstra A, McCabe N, Schelling M.. 1999, Expression and assembly of the angiogenic marker B-fibronectin by endothelial cells in-vitro. Angiogenesis (In -Press)