Anissa Alam
Pronouns: she/her/hers
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: Anissa Alam, Elisabeth Pedersen, Andrzej Dlugosz, Marina Grachtchouk
Presenter: 67
Abstract
Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) is a type of skin cancer in humans that forms when the basal cells become cancerous due to aberrant activation of Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway. Past studies done by my mentor have analyzed the biology of this skin cancer using conditional mouse models, designed to overexpress the GLI2 transcription factor and mimic the Hh pathway upregulation in epithelial cells. Since BCCs develop mainly in elderly population in humans, current research seeks to understand how age plays a role in the development of carcinoma. In our experimental mouse colonies we control the Hh signaling—thus, tumorigenesis— in target cells at a certain time, using a Lgr6 driver. Lgr6 promoter was used because it is active in all the skin layers affected by BCC. We activated tumorigenesis for young mice at 7 weeks and for aged mice at 22-24 months on its ear and analyzed several things: tumor growth, tumor multiplicity, survival time, and protein expression by immunostaining. We measured multiplicity specifically by taking serial images of the ear after a tumor first appeared and counted the number of tumors at 2 and 3 weeks. We collected measurement data on 60 aged mice and 31 young mice, which demonstrated significantly more tumors in young compared to aged mice. To further determine the influence of age on tumor behavior, we performed immuno-characterization of BCCs, using cell lineage markers such as Keratin 14 (for basal cells), Keratin 1 and Filaggrin (for differentiated cells) and also Keratins 17 and 6. This analysis did not reveal any significant difference in protein marker expression between tumors in young and aged mice. This suggests that BCC is not due to age related factors and corroborates with current research studies.
Biomedical Sciences, Interdisciplinary
