Susan L. Naylor, Ph.D., Professor
University of Texas Medical Branch
1977

(210) 567-3842
NAYLOR@UTHSCSA.EDU

Dr. Naylor has served three terms on NIH study sections as well as reviewed for other agencies and the Army Breast and Prostate Cancers Programs. She is an Associate Editor for Genomics and is on the editorial board of 4 other journals. Dr. Naylor has been an active member of the American Society of Human Genetics, serving as Chair of the Program Committee and on the Board of Directors. She was on the Program Committee for the 10th International Congress of Human Genetics in Vienna. She has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas Medical Branch, the Barbara Bowman Award for Contributions to Genetics from the Texas Genetics Society, the Distinguished Service Award from the Texas Genetics Society, and was named the Presidential Distinguished Scholar at UTHSCSA. She co-directs the Genetics and the Molecular Oncology courses in the graduate school. She teaches Bioinformatics in various programs at the Health Science Center. She is currently the chair of the Committee on Graduate Studies for Cellular & Structural Biology.

In our early studies with chromosome 3, we found that the middle of the short arm of chromosome 3 is frequently deleted in many types of cancer including lung, ovarian, head and neck, and uterine cancer. Using a combination of analysis of tumor samples and a functional assay for tumor suppression, we have limited the region to 80Kb of human DNA. Two related genes in this region: semaphorin 3F and semaphorin 3B not only suppress tumor growth in nude mice, but also alter in vitro tumorigenic properties of several tumor types. Our research is directed towards defining the role of these two genes in tumorigenesis. A translational project has spun off this research. We are examining common missense variants in the region as well as other SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) for association with prostate cancer. We have found that many markers in this region are associated with increased cancer risk as well as a poorer prognosis. Knockout mice of either gene develop tumors as they age.

A second project in the study of prostate cancer is to discover the role of the Y chromosome in tumorigenesis. We have place a selectable marker on the Y chromosome and transferred the Y into PC-3 (human prostate tumor) cells. Introduction of the Y chromosome results in the suppression of tumorigenesis. Furthermore, we have made a genomic BAC array for the Y chromosome. Comparative genomic hybridization of prostate cancer tumors with this array indicates that one specific region is lost in ~45% of tumors (see illustration). This deletion encompasses the TSPY locus.

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PUBLICATIONS:
Muzny DM, Scherer SE, Kaul R, Wang J, Yu J, Sudbrak R, Buhay CJ, Chen R, Cree A, Ding Y, Dugan-Rocha S, Gill R, Gunaratne P, Harris RA, Hawes AC, Hernandez J, Hodgson AV, Hume J, Jackson A, Khan ZM, Kovar-Smith C, Lewis LR, Lozado RJ, Metzker ML, Milosavljevic A, Miner GR, Morgan MB, Nazareth LV, Scott G, Sodergren E, Song XZ, Steffen D, Wei S, Wheeler DA, Wright MW, Worley KC, Yuan Y, Zhang Z, Adams CQ, Ansari-Lari MA, Ayele M, Brown MJ, Chen G, Chen Z, Clendenning J, Clerc-Blankenburg KP, Chen R, Chen Z, Davis C, Delgado O, Dinh HH, Dong W, Draper H, Ernst S, Fu G, Gonzalez-Garay ML, Garcia DK, Gillett W, Gu J, Hao B, Haugen E, Havlak P, He X, Hennig S, Hu S, Huang W, Jackson LR, Jacob LS, Kelly SH, Kube M, Levy R, Li Z, Liu B, Liu J, Liu W, Lu J, Maheshwari M, Nguyen BV, Okwuonu GO, Palmeiri A, Pasternak S, Perez LM, Phelps KA, Plopper FJ, Qiang B, Raymond C, Rodriguez R, Saenphimmachak C, Santibanez J, Shen H, Shen Y, Subramanian S, Tabor PE, Verduzco D, Waldron L, Wang J, Wang J, Wang Q, Williams GA, Wong GK, Yao Z, Zhang J, Zhang X, Zhao G, Zhou J, Zhou Y, Nelson D, Lehrach H, Reinhardt R, Naylor SL, Yang H, Olson M, Weinstock G, Gibbs RA. The DNA sequence, annotation and analysis of human chromosome 3. Nature. 2006 Apr 27;440(7088):1194-8.

Vijayakumar S, Hall DC, Reveles XT, Troyer DA, Thompson IM, Garcia D, Xiang R, Leach RJ, Johnson-Pais TL, Naylor SL. Detection of recurrent copy number loss at Yp11.2 involving TSPY gene cluster in prostate cancer using array-based comparative genomic hybridization. Cancer Res. 2006 Apr 15;66(8):4055-64.

Vijayakumar S, Garcia D, Hensel CH, Banerjee M, Bracht T, Xiang R, Kagan J, Naylor SL. (2005). The human Y chromosome suppresses the tumorigenicity of PC-3, a human prostate cancer cell line, in athymic nude mice. Genes Chromosomes Cancer Dec;44(4):365-72.

C. Tse, R.H. Xiang, T. Bracht, and S.L. Naylor (2002). The human semaphorin 3B located at chromosome 3p21.3 suppresses tumor formation in an ovarian tumor cell line. Cancer Res.62:542-546.

R.H. Xiang, A.R. Davalos, C.H.Hensel, and S.L. Naylor (2002). Semaphorin 3F gene from human 3p21.3 suppresses tumor formation in nude mice. Cancer Res.62:2637-2643.