Faith Gacheru
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Karl Desch
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Pediatrics / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 2 – 11am – 11:50am
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Faith Gacheru, Mary Underwood, Karl Desch
Presenter: 66
Abstract
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a serious medical condition that affects the lives of 900,000 Americans each year. DVT occur when a thrombus forms in the large veins of the lower or less commonly upper extremity. If these thrombi dislodge and travel along the vein to the lung vasculature, they can cause a life threatening condition called pulmonary embolism. Genetic studies have recently identified different mutations within the STAB2 gene that put people at risk for DVT. This gene encodes the protein stabilin-2 which is a scavenger receptor. It is hypothesized that stabilin-2 removes proteins from the circulation important for blood clotting, so when its function is decreased by mutation it may lead to the formation of DVT. To test this hypothesis, our lab is seeking to discover what factors interreact with stabilin-2 in blood, as this may ultimately aid the treatment of DVT. We developed a technique to identify the plasma ligands using chemical crosslinkers. Crosslinkers can be used to form a covalent bond between two interacting proteins. Stabilin-2 is known to interact with acetylated low density lipoprotein (aLDL) so we used this protein as a positive control to see if it would crosslink with stabilin-2. We incubated a form of stabilin-2 with aLDL and the crosslinker and probed the complex formed using western blotting. After testing different types of crosslinkers and different assay conditions, we successfully identified a crosslinker that formed a stable complex between the two proteins. Next we incubated stabilin-2 and the crosslinker with human plasma to identify other proteins interacting with stabilin-2. Currently these proteins await identification. In future experiments we will identify these proteins using mass spectrometry analysis. If we identify procoagulant proteins that are removed from the blood by stabilin-2, we will better understand why people with mutations in STAB2 are at higher risk for DVT and pulmonary embolism.
Biomedical Sciences, Interdisciplinary
