The Role of ITGA6 in Tumor Development
Primary Faculty Mentor’s Name
Vinoth Sittaramane
Proposal Track
Student
Session Format
Poster
Abstract
Cancer research is a large topic in science, because over 14 million people are diagnosed worldwide, and of those, 8 million will die annually. Traditional therapies of radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery are the mainstays of treatment strategies, but a cure less invasive or with less side effects have not yet been identified. In order to develop a better cure, we need to understand the tumor and its tissues and the molecules that may aid in the development of the tumor. Integrins, cell surface proteins that aid in cell communication, have been found in the tumor tissues of several types of cancers, including prostate, breast and neuroblastomas. Integrin alpha-6 (ITGA6), in particular, has been found to have a large effect on the progression of tumor development. In tumor tissues, we have seen an overexpression of the ITGA6 that leads to progression of tumor development. To develop a drug or therapeutic strategy, it is important to understand the role of ITGA6 in tumor development. We use a humanized zebrafish model, because human cancer cells can grow in fish tissues producing human proteins. We want to know the role of ITGA6 by first investigating the effects of under or overexpressing the gene and then to study the mechanism of ITGA6. We hypothesized that increasing ITGA6 will increase tumor development. To study this question, we overproduced ITGA6 by injecting human ITGA6 RNA and reduced the gene by injecting anti-sense nucleotides that would bind to Itga6 RNA and block them producing proteins. Embryos with increased ITGA6 had approximately 27% more tumor development than embryos with reduced ITGA6. In in vitro assays, ITGA6 has been shown to be cleaved that leads to increased amounts of ITGA6 products in the tumor’s tissue.To understand the role of ITGA6 cleavage in an in vivo system, we hypothesized tumor tissues with cleaved ITGA6 will have increased tumor development in comparison to tissues that do not have the cleaved product. We saw that embryos with cleaved ITGA6 had 15% more tumor progression than non-cleaved ITGA6 embryos. The preliminary experiments provided evidence which suggests increasing levels of ITGA6 leads to more tumor development, and non-cleavable ITGA6 leads to decreased level of tumor development. Further experiments aimed to help understand ITGA6’s role in tumor progression is ITGA6 gene manipulations in the cancer cells and using these conclusions to develop a good drug screen.
Keywords
cancer, metastasis, integrins, prostate, Zebrafish
Location
Concourse and Atrium
Presentation Year
2015
Start Date
11-7-2015 2:10 PM
End Date
11-7-2015 3:20 PM
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Luke, Shauntell N. Ms., "The Role of ITGA6 in Tumor Development" (2015). Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (2014-2015). 51.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gurc/2015/2015/51
The Role of ITGA6 in Tumor Development
Concourse and Atrium
Cancer research is a large topic in science, because over 14 million people are diagnosed worldwide, and of those, 8 million will die annually. Traditional therapies of radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery are the mainstays of treatment strategies, but a cure less invasive or with less side effects have not yet been identified. In order to develop a better cure, we need to understand the tumor and its tissues and the molecules that may aid in the development of the tumor. Integrins, cell surface proteins that aid in cell communication, have been found in the tumor tissues of several types of cancers, including prostate, breast and neuroblastomas. Integrin alpha-6 (ITGA6), in particular, has been found to have a large effect on the progression of tumor development. In tumor tissues, we have seen an overexpression of the ITGA6 that leads to progression of tumor development. To develop a drug or therapeutic strategy, it is important to understand the role of ITGA6 in tumor development. We use a humanized zebrafish model, because human cancer cells can grow in fish tissues producing human proteins. We want to know the role of ITGA6 by first investigating the effects of under or overexpressing the gene and then to study the mechanism of ITGA6. We hypothesized that increasing ITGA6 will increase tumor development. To study this question, we overproduced ITGA6 by injecting human ITGA6 RNA and reduced the gene by injecting anti-sense nucleotides that would bind to Itga6 RNA and block them producing proteins. Embryos with increased ITGA6 had approximately 27% more tumor development than embryos with reduced ITGA6. In in vitro assays, ITGA6 has been shown to be cleaved that leads to increased amounts of ITGA6 products in the tumor’s tissue.To understand the role of ITGA6 cleavage in an in vivo system, we hypothesized tumor tissues with cleaved ITGA6 will have increased tumor development in comparison to tissues that do not have the cleaved product. We saw that embryos with cleaved ITGA6 had 15% more tumor progression than non-cleaved ITGA6 embryos. The preliminary experiments provided evidence which suggests increasing levels of ITGA6 leads to more tumor development, and non-cleavable ITGA6 leads to decreased level of tumor development. Further experiments aimed to help understand ITGA6’s role in tumor progression is ITGA6 gene manipulations in the cancer cells and using these conclusions to develop a good drug screen.
