Kathryn Kim
Pronouns: She/Her
Research Mentor(s): Minerva Garcia-Barrio
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Internal Medicine / Cardiovascular Center / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 3 – 1:40pm – 2:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Kathryn Kim, Zachary Rose, Minerva Garcia-Barrio
Presenter: 79
Abstract
Throughout history cardiovascular disease (CVD) has remained the number one killer of humans. There are multiple different theories on how to manage cardiovascular disease such as medications and adjusting one’s lifestyle choices (altering exercise, eating, and smoking habits). Despite these efforts, the disease is still prevalent. One source of CVD is dysfunction in arterial vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC). In our project we focus on this aspect of the disease. VSMC fail due to increased proliferation, increased apoptosis (cell death) or reduced contractility. In an attempt to locate the cause of these failures, scientists screened for genes that increase proliferation or apoptosis. We discovered the Achaete scute like (ASCL) family of transcription factors expressed in VSCM, although at the time ASCL3 was thought to be specific to salivary glands, as well as cancer, another proliferative disease. The purpose of our research is to explore the role of ASCL3, which is not yet studied, in VSCM. From preliminary work done by the Principal Investigator, we know that up-regulation of ASCL3 will increase proliferation and prevent apoptosis, whereas down-regulation does the opposite. Therefore, we can conclude that ASCL3 levels may change associated with the expression of key genes in apoptosis. We hope to characterize the changes in those genes in A7r5 cells. We extracted mRNA, made cDNA, and performed qRT-PCR to assess the expression of essential genes related to apoptosis. We speculate that ASCL3 will be downregulated in apoptosis.
Biomedical Sciences, Natural/Life Sciences, Natural/Life Sciences
