Keywords

Glioblastoma, TrpC6

Abstract

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the extremely fatal brain tumors. The main reason that makes it so lethal is its capability to invade and spread to other parts of CNS producing secondary tumors. Among other factors hypoxia, reduced oxygen availability, is linked to higher metastatic potential of cancers. Hypoxia causes numerous changes in genome and proteome of the cell. These changes help a normal cell to adapt to nutritional deficiency, but the same changes can increase the malignancy and metastasis in tumor cells. Extensive research by a number of curious scientists reveal that various pathways involving numerous proteins cross-talk and interact with each other and execute a response to hypoxia. We are trying to establish the link between two such pathways HIF1-alpha pathway and Notch pathway. Both, HIF1-alpha, which is a transcription factor that becomes active in hypoxic conditions and Notch, which is an evolutionarily conserved cell-fate determinant, are implicated in hypoxia-induced metastasis of cancer. In this given project, we confirm the cross talk between Notch and HIF1-alpha pathway and further continue our study to show that TrpC6 is the downstream mediator of this pathway, leading to metastasis of GBM. Expression analysis of hypoxia-induced U373 cells (Grade 3 glioblastoma cells), using Real-time PCR, western blot and immunocytochemistry, revealed elevated levels of Notch, Hif1 and TrpC6 indicating that these proteins might be important for the cellular response to hypoxia. Blocking Notch and/or HIF1-alpha, either by DAPT or HIF1-inhibitor, confirmed the communication between these two pathways. Role of TrpC6 in metastasis was demonstrated by knocking down this gene using siRNA against TrpC6. Inhibition of TrpC6 markedly decreased cell proliferation, migration, angiogenesis and tumorigenesis in these hypoxia-induced Glioblastoma cells. In summary, all these results reveal that TrpC6 is indeed an important member of the Notch-mediated metastasis of Glioblastoma under hypoxic conditions. This role of TrpC6 can therefore be utilized for pharmacological intervention to prevent hypoxia-induced metastasis in GBM.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2008

Advisor

Sugaya, Kiminobu

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

Burnett College of Biomedical Sciences

Department

Molecular Biology and Microbiology

Degree Program

Molecular and Microbiology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0002485

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002485

Language

English

Release Date

September 2009

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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