cell signaling and breast cancer:

Cellular signaling pathways are not isolated from each other but are intercoected to form complex signaling networks. Cells receive information from many different growth factor receptors and from cell-matrix and cell-cell contacts. They must then inte- grate this information to regulate diverse processes, such as protein synthesis and cell growth, motility, cell architecture and polarity, differentiation, and programmed cell death. The same signaling molecules are used to control different processes within different signaling complexes or at different intracellular locations. Moreover, signaling pathways are subject to develop- mental regulation and generate different outcomes in different cell types; the activation of a signaling molecule may have distinct consequences, depending on the cellular context. Understanding how these extraordinarily complex signaling net-works function in vivo and how they are altered in c