School of Science Division of Life Science 24 DNA Replication-initiation Proteins in Human Cells Supervisor: LIANG, Chun / LIFS Student: SHI, Chenwei / BCB Course: UROP1000, Summer UROP2100, Spring Cancer is one of the most common global health problems that resulted in around 10 million deaths in 2020, according to a WHO report. Among the treatment for cancer, flavonoids play an important role as natural antioxidants. In this semester, I briefly proved the anti-cancer ability of hesperidin, a common type of flavonoid obtained from Citrus species, by treating HepG2 cells with different concentrations of hesperidin and obtained different groups of cell viability using WST-1 assay. In addition, recent discoveries provide great support for the potential of hesperidin to be a medicine against cancer since hesperidin can induce the apoptosis of cancer cells and reduce the inflammatory response. Molecular Regulation of Axon Regeneration Supervisor: LIU, Kai / LIFS Student: LI, Zhuying / BCB Course: UROP1000, Summer Triglycerides (TGs) are important energy source in cells, usually stored in lipid droplets (LDs). Different from other cell types, TG storage is relatively low in neurons due to the high activity of neuronal TG lipases, thus LDs are rarely detected. The rapid turnover between TGs and other lipid species might be related to the highly active membrane dynamics of neurons. Axon regeneration in adult dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons is a good model system to investigate these questions. Oleic acid (OA) and TG lipase inhibitors are potent inducers of LDs, and they can significantly increase the accumulation of LDs in DRG neurons. We found that the majority of LDs localize in soma, while they are also observed in axons. After removal of the inducers, LDs dissipate rapidly within 4 hours. The formation and dissipation of LDs are closely associated with membrane dynamics. Molecular Regulation of Axon Regeneration Supervisor: LIU, Kai / LIFS Student: TAN, Lianxing / BCB-IRE Course: UROP1100, Fall UROP2100, Spring UROP3100, Summer Previously, we identified chemical compounds that could promote axon growth in vitro using a PC12 cell line and mouse dorsal root ganglion cells (DRGs). In particular, cells treated with inhibitors of Autotaxin and SCD1 exhibited a broad and profound axon elongation effect. However, we are concerned that these effects are not due to a reduction in targets because ENPP2 and SCD1 have multiple isoforms in the mouse, and some of these isoforms, such as inhibitors of ENPP21, have been shown to mediate axon regeneration in vivo through cGAS-STING pathway. Therefore, in our recent results, we directly knocked down the RNA expression of Enpp2 and Scd1 in culture DRG in vitro and observed axon growth emergence.
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