Karly Kozicki
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Eliza Tsou
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Internal Medicine / Medicine
Program: CG
Session: Session 5 (2:40pm – 3:30pm)
Authors: Karly Kozicki, Dinesh Khanna, Eliza PS Tsou
Abstract
Scleroderma is a rare autoimmune disease that affects connective tissues. It Is characterized by the thickening and hardening of skin, organs, and blood vessels. It’s known that systemic sclerosis is the result of a build up of collagen in the body. However why and how this process takes place remains unknown. We hypothesized that RNA methylation that results in changes in gene expression can play a role in the development of this disease. For this project we compared the expression of genes in patients with systemic sclerosis against healthy controls. We initially used a database called GEO or Gene Expression Omnibus that provides data from previous studies. We extracted data from several genes involved in RNA methylation and looked for a difference in expression levels in systemic sclerosis patients versus healthy patients. Another method we used to analyze expression levels was quantitative PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, which measures the amount of RNA within a sample. We used dermal fibroblasts isolated from skin biopsies from patients with systemic sclerosis as well as healthy controls and ran a quantitative PCR on these samples. The results of these 2 methods showed variation in the expression levels of specific genes involved in RNA methylation in patients with systemic sclerosis. We hope to use this data to identify new therapeutic targets for this disease.
