April 28, 2017

Farhoud Golafshan '17

Cancer is the result of multiple mutations within an individual’s genome. Each tumor has its own unique genetic makeup, even among different tumors of the same tissue (e.g. breast cancer). Researchers are now working to understand the genetics of cancers to develop novel and effective treatments directed towards tumors that carry mutations of specific genes that drive cancer. Dorr et al., used transposon-based mutagenesis to identify multiple driver genes believed to play a significant role in lung cancers. One of these genes was CUL3, a gene that plays a critical role in the polyubiquitination and degradation of specific proteins. Previous work in our lab knocked-out CUL3 from the human HCT116 colorectal cancer cell line using CRISPR/Cas9. Upon knockout, the cells displayed a variety of phenotypic changes including alteration in cell size and growth rates as measured by metabolic assays. Three of five mutant cell lines showed evidence of higher metabolic activity over the HCT116 parental cell line despite dividing less frequently. In the current study, mutant cell lines also showed significant increases in metabolic activity when compared to the HCT116 parental with P-values <0.01. In addition, cell size was measured to determine the average sizes of the parental and mutant cell lines using ImageJ software. Analysis showed that mutant cell lines were significantly larger than the HCT116 parental line with P-values <0.01. These differences in cell size were not due to differential effects of the metabolic assay reagent on mutant and parental cells based on one-way ANOVA analysis of cell sizes in the presence or absence of the reagent (p values ranged from 0.26-0.987).

How Fertilizer Use Effects Groundwater Quality and Human Health

Tia Diggins '17

Conversion of grasslands to agriculture is increasing, and with that so is the use of fertilizers. A primary component of fertilizers is nitrate; which is highly soluble and mobile in soil. Therefore, nitrate is capable of reaching surface waters as well as well waters. The motivation for this research is due to Nitrate having negative health effects. Their objectives of this experiment are to determine the correlation between land use, and water quality. Also, to draw conclusions on impacts of water quality and health effects. Overall, the researcher's hypothesis was that areas of high fertilizer use would have bad water quality, and in result negative health effects of those living in the area. Eleven counties in Southeastern Minnesota were analyzed on land-use change, and water quality. Due to lack of public records, only 30% of well nitrate data was available. Therefore, the researchers narrowed their data to records from 2006 to 2012. After locating the wells, concentration of nitrate was calculated for each well. The maximum value throughout the seven years of a well was selected. That value was then compared to the federal standard threshold of 10 mg L^-1. These two steps were repeated for each well. Other research done by the US Environmental Protection Agency states that a smaller threshold of 4 mg nitrate-NL^-1 leads to increased health effects. This threshold was then taken into consideration when concluding to a result of a well. The researchers were able to find correlation between high agricultural areas, and bad water quality. They concluded that agriculture lead to an increase of nitrate in water, and this increases the impacts on human well being.