Page 22 - Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Proceedings 2017-18

School of Science
Division of Life Science

DNA duplication. CDC6 is an essential regulator of DNA replication and required for loading MCMs proteins onto DNA to
start the DNA synthesis. This research aims to find some kinds of miRNA which can inhibit MCM2 and CDC6 expression
and produce some medicine that inhibit cancer cell proliferation by use of these miRNA.

DNA Replication-initiation Proteins in Budding Yeast

Supervisor: LIANG Chun / LIFS
Student: KONG Deyue / BCB Course: UROP1100, Fall

Origin Recognition Complex (ORC) critically regulates DNA replication initiation. Examining the mechanisms by which
ORC associates and dissociates from chromatin during the cell cycle enables us to enhance our understanding of pre-RC
formation and inspires medical advances for cancer treatment. Previous studies have shown that ORC dimerizes and de-
dimerizes in a cell cycle dependent way, but the molecular mechanism of this process remains unclear. In this
experiment, the phosphorylation status of Orc6p was examined to further our understanding of ORC dimerization and
de-dimerization. The chromatin binding pattern of non-phosphorable Orc6p in W3031a wild-type cells was examined
throughout the cell cycle. FACS analysis was used to verify synchrony and cell cycle progression. The results indicate
that phosphorylation of Orc6p is required for ORC de-dimerization, while ORC dimerization requires de-phosphorylation.

Supervisor: LIANG Chun / LIFS
Student: LAM Ying Yi / BISC Course: UROP1000, Summer

In this study, the capability of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) on treating insulin resistance (IR) was investigated.
The drugs used in the experiments were XKC, QQL, TC, and MDF. To determine the optimal concentration in terms of the
effect on cell viability and glucose uptake, these drugs were applied to the Non-IR HepG2 cells first. Afterward, cells
were induced to be IR cells model by insulin. After treatment, the glucose uptake and intracellular glucose level were
measured through the glucose assay kit. Furthermore, Western blot was used to test the level of GLUT2. The result
showed that the optimal concentration of drugs was 0.3 mg/ml. All the drugs showed the ability to reverse insulin
resistance and QQL demonstrated the greatest performance.

Supervisor: LIANG Chun / LIFS
Student: LEUNG Tsz Wan / BIBU Course: UROP1000, Summer
LIAO, Helen Ziqing / SSCI UROP1000, Summer

For this two-month project, few experiments were done to test the hypothesis that pre-replication complex (pre-RC)
assembly is impaired by the anti-cancer drug candidate M2 which leads to an abortive S phase followed by apoptosis in
cancer cells. Results from flow cytometry of HeLa cells after cell synchronization at G1-phase showed that overall, M2-
treated samples result in more dead cells than non M2-treated samples. However, the results from the chromatin
binding assay of HeLa and HGC27 cells turned out to be inexplicable and does not support the hypothesis of this project.
Such results are contradictive and suggest that more trials and experiments are needed for reliable results that could be
used to further study the effect of M2 on MCM protein loading.

Supervisor: LIANG Chun / LIFS
Student: LI Qian Xin / SSCI Course: UROP1000, Summer
ZHENG Danyi / BIBU UROP1000, Summer

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