Cellular and Structural Biology | Faculty
Department of Cellular & Structural Biology

CSB Joint Appointed Faculty

 

Photo of Dr. Padalecki Susan S. Padalecki, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

 

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 2000

 

Department of Urology and Cellular & Structural Biology, UTHSCSA
(210) 567-5651
southwell@uthscsa.edu

 

Dr. Padalecki is jointly appointed in the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology and Urology. She is a lecturer and laboratory instructor in the Gross Anatomy Course for first year dental students. This course focuses on head and neck anatomy, embryology and neuroanatomy. Her laboratory is focused on the study of bone metastases as a result of genitor-urinary malignancies such as prostate and bladder cancer.

 

Research Interests:
Bone is the most common site of metastases for solid tumors such as breast, prostate and bladder cancers. These metastases contribute significantly to the morbidity and mortality of these cancers. Significant progress has been made in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying osteolytic bone metastases particularly from breast cancer. However, in advanced prostate cancer and to some degree bladder cancer, patients tend to present with osteoblastic lesions or mixed osteolytic-osteoblastic bone metastases. Much less is known about the mechanisms leading to these types of bone metastases. Our initial studies have lead to the development of reliable animal models of prostate cancer metastases to bone and bladder cancer metastases to bone. We have also shown that androgen deprivation, a common treatment for advanced prostate cancer, can increase the incidence of bone metastases. Our focus now is to utilize these models of bone metastasis to dissect the pathophysiology of prostate cancer and bladder cancer metastases to bone as well as for use in pre-clinical testing of therapeutics. Identification of specific molecular targets for the development of therapeutics is a key goal in this work.

 

We are also using these models of bone metastases to determine the role of osteolysis in the development of bone metastases which are osteoblastic in nature. This is important because it may mean that therapeutics already approved and in use for osteolytic bone metastases may have clinical benefit to patients with osteoblastic bone metastases.

 

Dr. Padalecki research image

Volume-rendered microCT images of mice bearing osteolytic bone metastases following intra-cardiac inoculation of human tumor cells.

 

Research Techniques:
Mammalian tissue culture
Bone Cell culture
Bone Histomorphometry
Radiographic analysis of skeletal lesions in Mice
Analysis of Bone Mineral Density in Mice
Nuclear Imaging in Mice
Molecular Genetics

 

PUBLICATIONS:
Sterling JA, Oyajobi BO, Grubbs B, Padalecki SS, Munoz SA, Gupta A, Story B, Zhao M, Mundy GR. (2006) The hedgehog signaling molecule Gli2 induces parathyroid hormone-related peptide expression and osteolysis in metastatic human breast cancer cells.Cancer Res. Aug 1;66(15):7548-53.PMID: 16885353

 

Guise TA, Kozlow WM, Heras-Herzig A, Padalecki SS, Yin JJ, Chirgwin JM. (2005) Molecular mechanisms of breast cancer metastases to bone.Clin Breast Cancer. Feb;5 Suppl(2):S46-53. PMID: 15807924

 

Padalecki SS, Weldon KS, Reveles XT, Buller CL, Grubbs B, Cui Y, Yin JJ, Hall DC, Hummer BT, Weissman BE, Dallas M, Guise TA, Leach RJ, Johnson-Pais TL. (2003) Chromosome 18 suppresses prostate cancer metastases.Urol Oncol. Sep-Oct;21(5):366-73. PMID: 14670546.

 

Padalecki SS, Guise TA. (2002) Actions of bisphosphonates in animal models of breast cancer.Breast Cancer Res. 4(1):35-41. Epub 2001 Dec 20. PMID: 11879558

 

Padalecki SS, Johnson-Pais TL, Killary AM, Leach RJ. (2001) Chromosome 18 suppresses the tumorigenicity of prostate cancer cells.Genes Chromosomes Cancer. Mar;30(3):221-9. PMID: 11170278