Post-Grant Reports

Title

Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Grant Report

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

3-13-2019

Disciplines

Biology | Cancer Biology | Genetics and Genomics

Abstract

This project focused on testing the hypothesis that DNA repair gene variants (GVs) contribute to elevated cancer risk. It seeks to understand the potential role of cancer-associated variants of DNA repair genes (such as Mre11) in inducing genomic instability.

During summer 2018, I collaborated with 3 students (Ashley Headrick, Cristina Mateos, and Itzel Romero) and focused on the following aims: 1) to test the hypothesis that tumor-derived variants of Mre11 can drive genomic instability and carcinogenesis, and 2) if the variants of Mre11 have the potential to influence responses to DNA damaging agents which are important for cancer treatment. Our preliminary data from the summer suggests that the three variants of Mre11 are sensitive to DNA damaging agent bleomycin (BLM) and have accumulated double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs). This indicates Mre11 variants induce genomic instability. Importantly, our results suggest that the status of Mre11 variants can impact treatment of tumors with BLM. Likewise, other DNA damaging agents will be tested.

Comments

This research was conducted as part of a Linfield College Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Grant in 2018, funded by the Office of Academic Affairs.

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