Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: Cancer Research
Session: 3
Room: Exhibit Hall A
Timothy King - Louisiana State University
Co-Author(s): Connor T. King, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Dr. Elizabeth C. Martin, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related death in American women. Despite the advantages of therapy, some breast cancers become drug-resistant to therapy or reemerge after a period of dormancy. The tumor extracellular microenvironment has been shown to enhance drug resistance in cancer cells. What is not known is how cancer therapy remodels the tumor microenvironment to enhance drug resistance. The goal of research proposed here is to test the overall hypothesis: Breast cancer resistance to primary therapy arises from therapy induced alterations to adipose derived stem cells. Our method for this project includes cell culturing and drugging of adipose derived stem cells (ASCs), RNA extraction, cDNA synthesis, and qRT-PCR analysis. Our preliminary results demonstrate that ASCs treated with paclitaxel or vehicle control had enhanced gene expression for matrix associated gene expression (COL10A1 and COL5A1) and pro-inflammatory signaling factors (IL8 and MCP1). Interestingly, Kaplan Meier analysis of matrix genes (COL10A1) altered with therapy correlated with poor patient survival rates. Analysis of triple negative breast cancer cells with enhanced collagen 10 expression demonstrated an altered pro-inflammatory signaling profile as well. These results identify stromal remodeling as a possible mechanism for drug resistance.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, which funds the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center; LSU Discover
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Martin, emart93@lsu.edu
Role: I cultured stem cells by inducing cell lines with the Paclitaxel and maintaining a control then commenced to growing them in media, splitting, and collecting them. I then performed the RNA extractions and then reverse transcribed that into cDNA. This cDNA was then used to analyze gene expression in the comparison of treatments via qRT-PCR.