Exploring the Formation of Interstrand Crosslinks in Calf Thymus DNA with Arginine and Potential Anti-Cancer Agent SOS
Location
CSU Ballroom
Start Date
2-4-2019 10:00 AM
End Date
2-4-2019 11:30 AM
Student's Major
Chemistry and Geology
Student's College
Science, Engineering and Technology
Mentor's Name
Danae Quirk Dorr
Mentor's Department
Chemistry and Geology
Mentor's College
Science, Engineering and Technology
Description
One reason that cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide is its lack of termination programming. A possible solution to negating the effects of cancerous cells is to reprogram their DNA to replicate the termination process of non-cancerous cells. Forming interstrand crosslinks between the 2 helices of the DNA in cancer cells could halt the transcription of DNA. This would prevent the cancer cell from producing its necessary proteins and would eventually kill it. In this research, it has been proposed that reacting the thiophene derivative, SOS, in the presence of the amino acid arginine, with calf thymus DNA will form interstrand crosslinks in the DNA because SOS contains two aldehyde functional groups that can react with the guanosine nitrogenous base in DNA. In this experiment, the previously discussed reaction between SOS, arginine, and calf-thymus DNA was performed along with other couplings of the reactants used as controls so that results could be compared. Following the reaction, the calf thymus DNA mixtures underwent enzymatic digestion in order to cleave the nucleosides and nucleoside adducts from the phosphate sugar backbone. Each reaction sample underwent high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for analysis.
Exploring the Formation of Interstrand Crosslinks in Calf Thymus DNA with Arginine and Potential Anti-Cancer Agent SOS
CSU Ballroom
One reason that cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide is its lack of termination programming. A possible solution to negating the effects of cancerous cells is to reprogram their DNA to replicate the termination process of non-cancerous cells. Forming interstrand crosslinks between the 2 helices of the DNA in cancer cells could halt the transcription of DNA. This would prevent the cancer cell from producing its necessary proteins and would eventually kill it. In this research, it has been proposed that reacting the thiophene derivative, SOS, in the presence of the amino acid arginine, with calf thymus DNA will form interstrand crosslinks in the DNA because SOS contains two aldehyde functional groups that can react with the guanosine nitrogenous base in DNA. In this experiment, the previously discussed reaction between SOS, arginine, and calf-thymus DNA was performed along with other couplings of the reactants used as controls so that results could be compared. Following the reaction, the calf thymus DNA mixtures underwent enzymatic digestion in order to cleave the nucleosides and nucleoside adducts from the phosphate sugar backbone. Each reaction sample underwent high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for analysis.
Recommended Citation
Osgood, Abbigail. "Exploring the Formation of Interstrand Crosslinks in Calf Thymus DNA with Arginine and Potential Anti-Cancer Agent SOS." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 2, 2019.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2019/poster-session-A/9
