Olivia Powell
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Isabelle Lombaert
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Biologic & Materials Sciences / Dentistry
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 4 (1:40pm – 2:30pm)
Authors: Hannah Viola
Abstract
Salivary gland cells, specifically acinar cells, are damaged after radiation therapy due to head and neck cancer which can lead to hypo-salvation (saliva loss) causing dry mouth. Research is being conducted to determine how stem cells respond to different environments in order to regenerate the damaged salivary gland cells. This is being done by irradiating salivary cells at different levels of radiation and comparing the cells at different time intervals post irradiation to non-irradiated cells to determine any differentiation of gene expression. As this experiment is still ongoing there have been few results, however what was found was that transcription factors are important for salivary gland maintenance and without them, secretory units die off. A particularly important transcription factor, Sox 10, was found to be essential for the maintenance and differentiation of stem cells that grow to become salivary gland cells. This aligns when comparing irradiated to non-irradiated cells, as the non-irradiated cells have a depletion of Sox 10 causing their cell death. Therefore it can be hypothesized that the reactivation of Sox 10, and similar transcription factors, can regenerate damaged cells by promoting new growth of acinar cells. This research is valuable for future patients who have extensive salivary gland cell damage due to irradiation as it leads researchers to uncover an approach for restoring damaged cell structure and function.
