School of Science Division of Life Science 33 Investigating the Effects of Nanoplastics on Neurotransmission Supervisor: PARK Hyo Keun / LIFS Student: YUNG Wing Tung / BCB Course: UROP 4100, Fall Plastics have causing increasingly serious environmental problems currently. In recent years, concerns regarding how the pollution problems of extremely small plastics debris, nanoplastics, with the measuring size smaller than 0.1 µm, may affect human health increased. As studies have shown that nanoplastics can enter the brain of mice and pose negative effects, this project aims to investigate the effects of nanoplastics treatment on the amount of neuronal protein, Synapsin I, which is highly related to neurotransmission function. Western blot had been done to see if the amount of Synapsin I in neuron samples with different nanoplastics concentrations treatment would have difference. However, no obvious difference could be observed in the results of the western blot experiments done throughout this semester. Further studies and experiments needed to be done. Measuring Ca2+ in Mitochondria-Associated Endoplasmic Reticulum Membrane (MAM) in Brain Disorders Supervisor: PARK Hyo Keun / LIFS Student: CHUNG Ka Pak / PHYS-IRE Course: UROP 1000, Summer In this research, we aim to investigate the calcium (Ca2+) dynamics between endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria through MAM in neurodegenerative disease. Throughout the summer semester, we have been doing literature review on the ways to visualize Ca2+ in living cells, including the illuminance imaging processes, cell culturing and finding the fluorescent required. Studies on cell culture and transfection procedures required are also conducted. Going through all equipment required, including the laser and the cells used, the protocol has been completed for verifying the visualization processes. Experiments on human kidney cells will begin at the end of August as a trial, before the start of investigating neurons. CRISPR/Cas9 Analysis of Essential Genes Supervisor: POON Randy Yat Choi / LIFS Student: YIN Zekai / BIOT-AB Course: UROP 1100, Spring The MitoTracker Deep Red can chemically mark mitochondria and allow visualization of mitochondria in living cells. However, MitoTracker Deep Red can affect the functions of mitochondria, leading to a delay in the cell cycle. In this study, I have investigated if the cell cycle of human retinal pigment epithelial-1 (RPE-1) cells is affected by MitoTracker Deep Red. Different concentrations of MitoTracker Deep Red were tested using live-cell imaging analysis. To determine if cellular transformation could overcome the effects of MitoTracker Deep Red on the cell cycle, I also employed RPE-1 lacking p53 and expressing an oncogenic HRas. My results indicated that at concentrations that did not affect the overall cell cycle duration in the population, daughter cells that inherited different levels of mitochondria exhibited different cell cycle duration. These results raise interesting questions regarding the interplay between the cell cycle and mitochondria content.
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