Ectopic activation of EGFR signaling in the airway epithelium of Drosophila induces lung cancer-like phenotypes

Lung cancer is one of the most aggressive types of cancer with an extremely high overall fatality rate due to late state detection and the lack of late state treatment options. Drosophila is a model for studying chronic inflammatory diseases of the lung, it's tracheal system shares comprehensive structural and functional similarities with the human lung, thus making it an ideal model for studying the molecular framework underlying lung cancer development. Targeted overexpression of human oncogenes and their Drosophila homologs in the airway epithelium was chosen to induce cancer-like phenotypes in Drosophila. Th…