The Patton lab focuses on the role of small noncoding RNAs and their role in the regulation of gene expression. We study how microRNAs regulate early vertebrate development, regeneration, and cancer.
Our work in the cancer field focuses on the role that extracellular vesicles play in cell-cell communication, particularly in the tumor microenvironment. Recent work has shown that extracellular vesicles can carry RNA and protein cargo from donor cells to recipient cells and uptake by recipient cells can alter growth characteristics including proliferation, invasiveness, and metastasis. We seek to identify the mechanisms that control which small RNAs are destined for secretion, how they are taken up by donor cells, and how they function in recipient cells.