Nihal Lingam
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Marina Grachtchouk
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Dermatology / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 3 – 1:40pm – 2:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Nihal Lingam, Elisabeth Pedersen, Andrzej Dlugosz, Marina Grachtchouk
Presenter: 66
Abstract
Years of research have been dedicated to studying uncontrolled hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway that lead to various tumors, including BCC development in skin. As BCC is common in elderly people, an underlying question that is brought up in research is its effects upon aged vs young populations. To study this, we generated Lgr6-CreER;R26-LSL-rtTA;tetO-Gli2A transgenic mice to mimic Hh pathway activation in epithelial tissue and tracked tumor growth in skin of young (7-week-old) and aged (22-24 months old) experimental groups. With the application of serial imaging and photoshop, we were able to calculate the area of tumors in the mice’s ear by precisely outlining and calculating the pixels^2 per tumor. With the data gathered through young and aged colonies, the tumors were tracked in increments of seven days for up to eight weeks. Using excel, the tumors were mapped out with the x-axis being the number of days and the y-axis being the area (px^2). Through the myriad of graphs displayed, we were able to compare the graphs of each age colony to notice any major statistical differences. In addition, from the preliminary data collected, we have observed that young mice develop tumors early on transgene activation as compared to older mice. Furthermore, once the tumors had been detected, the rate of development was at a high exponential rate, however, there was no significant difference between the growth rate of each age groups. Along with the graphs, immunostaining was another useful process to validate the claim. Immunostaining utilizes antibodies, such as Keratins 5 and 1, K67, Cleaved Caspase-3, to detect proteins at the tissue level and compare tumor features in multiple skin samples. With the staining collected, it was evident that there were no significant differences between the young and aged colonies for the specific markers. With the graphs and the immunostaining process, we can conclude that there were no notable differences in BCC development between young vs aged colonies.
Biomedical Sciences, Interdisciplinary
