Can I activate signaling pathways without extracellular stimuli? - (Feb/16/2013 )

For example the MAPK pathway in Hela cells or SW480? or any other cancer cell line for that matter.

Not as far as I know - you need some sort of stimulus, and that can only come from outside if you want to get a lot of cells all doing the same thing at the same time.

Okey, in some way it does not add up to me. If we have cancer cells and the pathways are disrupted in them in some way, meaning that the pathways are constitutively acive, In that case, we should be abla to detect activation without stimulation, at least compared to healthy cells.

Tank you for your answer

Yes, in that case you, if the pathways are constituitvely activated, you should be able to see it - but that isn't what you asked!

Fair enough, that was not really my question to begin with. Thank you for your time.