Altered Expression of MYH10 in BXPC-3 Pancreatic Cancer Cell Line

Undergraduate #4
Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: Cancer Research

Jamiu Giwa-Otusajo - Morgan State University
Co-Author(s): Blessing Akobundu, Kaisha Hazel, and Simon Nyaga, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD

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Pancreatic cancer is a deadly disease usually diagnosed late after metastasis. American Cancer Society estimates 53,070 new cases and 41,780 deaths in the United States by the end of 2016. Despite the deadly nature of the disease, little is known about its causes. However, altered expression of specific proteins including P53, STK15, HSP70, and SIRT1 has been reported in pancreatic cancer. This implicates these proteins in the etiology of the disease. Other studies have shown that the actin-myosin cytoskeletal protein, MYH10, is involved in the metastasis of cancer. Nevertheless, the specific role of MYH10 in pancreatic cancer is yet to be determined. Since MYH10 is involved in contraction of cells during migration, we hypothesize that its expression level may be important in the etiology of pancreatic cancer. To address our hypothesis, we analyzed the expression of MYH10 in BxPC-3, pancreatic cancer cells relative to the non-malignant HPDE-6 pancreatic cells. The two cell lines were cultured in 5% CO2 incubators at 37°C. Nuclear extracts were prepared from both cell lines and protein concentrations determined by BCA assay. The proteins were resolved by SDS Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and MYH10 level was determined by Western blot analysis. Our results revealed that MYH10 was overexpressed approximately 3-5 times in BxPC-3 cells compared to the nonmalignant pancreatic cells. Furthermore, altered expression of other proteins including 15 kDa and 140 kDa proteins was also observed. These findings are consistent with our hypothesis and implicate the involvement of MYH10 in pancreatic carcinogenesis. In future studies, SiRNA depletion would be assessed to determine the specific contribution of MYH10 to the mechanism of migration in pancreatic cancer cells.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): 1. National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R25GM058904. 2. NSFS-STEM, Award No. 1154218

Faculty Advisor: Simon Nyaga, Simon.Nyaga@morgan.edu

Role: Every part of the research from growing of cells to harvesting cells to analyzing protein expression was done solely by me with little help from my colleagues that are listed as the co-authors. My mentor helped a great deal in the process of scientific writing of my abstract as he guided me in the process.