Effects of Lithium Chloride in C. Elegans: A Potential Treatment for Huntington's Disease
Board Location: #47
Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: cell & molecular biology
Session: 1
Taylor Podob - University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg
Co-Author(s): '- Mackenzie Taylor, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Greensburg, PA - Riley Lesko, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Greensburg, PA
Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a rare genetic disease that causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. HD causes the DNA sequence “CAG,” which consists of cytosine, adenine, and guanine, to continuously repeat more than usual, typically having 36 or more repeats. The model organism Caenorhabditis elegans has been used to observe and attempt to treat Huntington’s Disease. C. elegans are small, comparable to the tip of a pencil, and they can be easily maintained in a laboratory environment in plates of NGM that are seeded with E. coli bacteria. The C. elegans’ genome has been mapped since the late 90s and has homologs with the human genome, allowing for research done with them to be applied to humans. In the experiment, Lithium Chloride was picked to treat the motility of the animals because it reduces dopamine levels in presynaptic cells and results in inhibitory effects on the postsynaptic cell, shutting down the synapse. This mechanism could lower the high levels of dopamine and chorea seen in HD patients. Also, paraquat was picked for research because it functions in cellular metabolism, affecting any organism’s development, lifespan, and reproduction. In wild-type worms, a small amount of paraquat has shown a decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential and the breakdown of linear to fragmented mitochondria. The C. elegans strains EAK102 and EAK103 were used in the research as HD model organisms, the EAK103’s having a motility effect, causing more CAG repeats. 2 assays were completed: thrashing and imaging. Overall, lithium chloride and paraquat showed a significant impact on their motility in the thrashing assay and their appearance in the imaging assay. Future aims of this project include determining change in actual protein levels and testing different treatments.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): NSF S-STEM Grant Award No. 2130102 and The Beta Beta Beta Research Foundation Grant
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Olivia Long, OSL5@pitt.edu
Role: This research was completed as part of an independent research project, completed with two other undergraduate students. The entire project, hypothesis, methods, and data collections were all completed by us since the Spring of 2023 to current.