Rithvik Rajesh
Research Mentor: Chang Kim
Mentor Department: Not Available, Not Available
Author(s): Not Available
Session: Session 5 (2:00 PM – 2:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 80
Abstract
Vitamin A and its active metabolite retinoic acid play important roles in the regulation of immune responses, particularly in mucosal tissues such as the small intestine. Disruptions in vitamin A signaling alter immune homeostasis and may contribute to inflammatory disease and cancer progression. In this study, we examined the effects of diet-induced vitamin A deficiency on immune cell populations in the small intestine of mice. Mice were maintained on either a normal diet or a vitamin A deficient diet for twelve weeks. Then, small intestinal tissue was analyzed using flow cytometry and single-cell RNA sequencing. Transcriptomic data was processed in R using Seurat to identify immune cell populations and compare their relative abundance between the two conditions. Initial analyses suggest that vitamin A deficiency is associated with shifts in intestinal immune cell populations, including decreased B cell populations and increased cytotoxic lymphocyte and innate lymphoid cell populations.
