Fig. 2. The Diasporin Pathway.

A putative transcriptional network that we have termed the “Diasporin Pathway” was constructed by applying the Occam’s Razor principle, i.e. the simplest explanation is likely correct, by minimizing the number of potential interactions that would still explain the results. The pathway consists primarily of the seven ECM eQTL/metastasis efficiency modifier candidate genes as well as a number of factors that are known to be modulators of metastasis. The transcriptional relationship between each gene was determined by using qPCR and microarray expression analysis of the highly metastatic Mvt-1 cell line stably transfected with one of the seven candidate genes. At this stage of analysis, Brd4 and Rrp1b appear to be at the heart of this network since both physically interact with the previously described metastasis efficiency modifier Sipa1.