Authors: Apurva Mitta, Natalia Nortz, Lauren Reynolds, Deena Warid, and Dr. Cheryl Ingram-Smith
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Cheryl Ingram-Smith
College: College of Science
Entamoeba histolytica is a human pathogen that causes amoebic dysentery in approximately 100 million people each year worldwide. The mode of transmission for this amoeba is a fecal-oral route in which cyst-contaminated food and water are ingested. The cysts convert to the trophozoite form which colonizes in the large intestine to cause disease. The trophozoites can convert back into cysts to spread infection when shed back into the environment.
There is little information about how encystation (conversion from trophozoite back to cyst) occurs in E. histolytica. However, encystation has been well studied in the reptile pathogen Entamoeba invadens, including evaluation of gene expression during encystation and excystation. We used an online data resource to identify motifs present in the promoter region of genes that exhibited similar expression profiles. Our findings and the use of bioinformatics showed that there are significant motifs within the genome of E. invadens when analyzing patterns and locations. The gene expression of E. invadens was then compared to that of E. histolytica in order to discover more about the relationship between the pathogens.
Natalia Nortz 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium
