Research Abstract

Dr. Quade's research interests focus primarily on mesenchymal tumors of the female genital tract. Benign uterine leiomyomas and endometrial polyps are among the most common neoplasms and pose a major public health problem for women of reproductive age. Although less common, malignant leiomyosarcomas can be difficult to distinguish from atypical or quasi-malignant leimoyoma variants. Dr. Quade's laboratory has ongoing projects to identify and characterize genes important in uterine leiomyoma pathobiology, and to understand the molecular genetic distinctions bewteen benign and malignant mesenchymal tumors of the uterus. In several recent publications, he has accessed aberrant expression of the DNA architectrural factors HMGIY and HMGIC in leiomyomas with chromosomal rearrangements involving their respective genes on chromosomes 6 and 12. His laboratory has shown that uterine leiomyosarcomas are characterized by frequent loss of heterozygosity for chromosome 10 compared to leiomyomas. He has shown in an earlier work that disseminated peritoneal leiomyomatosis, a clinical benign condition once regarded as metaplastic, has the molecular features of a metastasizing neoplasm and cytogenetic features similar to benign leiomyomas. Dr. Quade also is a co-investigator and project leader for the Developmental Genome Anatomy Project. This program project seeks to identify developmentally important genes by mapping balanced chromosome rearrangements associated with multiple congenital anomalies.