Balanos Abstracts
Colter Esparza - Investigating the Role of Glutamine Metabolism in Pancreatic Cancer Cells Under Metabolic Stress Conditions.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a type of exocrine pancreatic cancer that develops in the pancreatic duct cells. PDAC is an aggressive malignancy with a median survival time of 10-12 months. It is predicted to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths by 2030. Therefore, it's imperative to understand the biology of PDAC and identify putative therapeutic targets. To sustain their proliferation, many cancer cells, including PDAC, exhibit rapid glucose consumption, with most of the glucose-derived carbon being secreted as lactate despite abundant oxygen availability (the Warburg effect). While the Warburg effect is an important feature of cancer, studies have shown that cancer can adapt to the rapidly changing tumor microenvironment by gaining diverse metabolic phenotypes, the "metabolic plasticity." The present study aims to understand the mechanisms of metabolic plasticity in pancreatic cancer cells while identifying the specific nutrients that sustain pancreatic cancer cell growth under metabolic stress. Using RT-PCR and immunoblotting, we studied metabolic gene expression associated with Glycolysis and glutaminolysis. Preliminary data shows that glutamine acts as a rescue mechanism to further cell survival. Understanding the metabolic vulnerabilities of cancer cells can help us to selectively target PDAC as well as other cancers.
Payden Farnsley – Bridging Disciplines on Mars: Integrating Biology and Artificial Intelligence for Plant Growth
Increasing demand for space exploration is seen as the key to long-term human survival as colonization of extraterrestrial planets come closer to reality. Plants provide food, energy, and oxygen for survival. The NASA-affiliated Plant the Moon competition challenges teams across multiple educational divisions to grow crops in simulated Mars soil (regolith) in a given growth period. Students at Southwestern Oklahoma State University have participated in this challenge and have studied interactions between microbes, Mars regolith, mammal fecal matter, and plant growth for food production. Mars regolith is sterile & devoid of organic matter. It behaves differently than earth soil; parameters involving plant growth have been tested, in addition to soil additives. Total plant yield, soil pH and seedling germination rates have been measured for lettuce, spinach, basil, and radishes, with some of these plants being grown successfully in Mars regolith. A joint research project between computer science and biology at SWOSU will implement artificial intelligence and perform parameter testing on soil additive concentrations and specific growth conditions. Using multiple parameter tests, we anticipate finding the best combination of growth conditions and concentrations for crop yield in extraterrestrial soils.
Rachel Uhlig & Joseph Alcuitas – Sexual Selection in Response to Varying Levels of Cultural Eutrophication
Sexually selected traits are expensive to build and maintain. This makes them condition-dependent and useful for making decisions about potential mates. However, the condition-dependence of these traits is also expected to make them hypersensitive to environmental change. We explored patterns of sexual selection in populations of amphipods in the genus Hyalella exposed to varying levels of nutrient pollution. These varying levels are likely due to fertilizer runoff from local farms. Higher levels of phosphorous, indicative of high nutrients, were predicted to lead to larger sexually selected traits, the posterior gnathopod (a claw-like trait) and second antenna.We collected amphipods from the lakes and compared male sexual trait sizes. We discovered that males collected from lakes with more nutrients tended to have larger sexual traits. Female choice may be compromised because poor quality males can build larger sexual traits. This could worsen the overall health of the population.
Danya Van Vuuren – Investigating Cancer-Associated Proteins During Hibernation in the Thirteen-Lined Ground Squirrel
The phenomenon of hibernation is a unique and complex process that still remains to be understood on a molecular level. Hibernation involves changes in pathways that control bodily functions in order to slow overall cellular activity. This is accompanied by significant changes in gene expression and cellular homeostasis. Anecdotal evidence suggests that animals that hibernate display resistance to cancer as many of the signaling pathways involved in tumor formation are altered. This includes molecules like p38 and ERK which are central to the stress-induced kinase pathways. Additionally, the transcription factor c-Myc is implicated in many human cancers and could play a role in mitosis regulation during torpor. This project aims to analyze changes in these proteins involved in regulating processes such as mitosis, apoptosis, and cell survival throughout the phases of hibernation in thirteen-lined ground squirrels. These proteins will be analyzed at multiple time points and in multiple tissues including the hypothalamus, skeletal muscle, white adipose tissue, and brown adipose tissue. The plasma of hibernating animals will also be used to treat cancer cells to identify possible anti-cancerous properties of torpor-associated proteins. This data could provide insight into how certain pathways can facilitate both tumor regulation and homeostasis during hibernation.
Kailyn Yeisley – Using Bacteria to Trigger the Innate Immune Response in Drosophila to Examine the Potential Role of Dynactin in Toll Signaling
The innate immune response is the body's initial non-specific defense against invading pathogens. It is initiated through the cellular Toll signaling pathway by bacteria and injury which leads to the production of certain antimicrobial peptides. These responses have been found in vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants, where the basic mechanisms that regulate them are conserved. In Drosophila, the Toll Signaling pathway is involved in both dorsal/ventral axis specification as well as innate immunity. Dorsal, an NF-κB related protein, a component of the Toll signaling pathway, is found to be expressed in both larval and adult fat body, an organ that functions like a vertebrate’s liver. After larval injury, the Toll signaling pathway is activated, which results in a rapid translocation of Dorsal from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. Once in the nucleus, Dorsal activates the transcription of various defense genes. The transport of essential biological materials throughout the cell requires the molecular motors, Dynein and Kinesin. Dynein associates with the protein complex Dynactin, and it is known to promote Dynein function by serving as an adaptor for cargo and enhancing processivity. It was hypothesized that Dynactin could be involved in the transport of Dorsal from the cytoplasm to the nuclear envelope. To test this, Drosophila dynactin mutant larvae were challenged by feeding with bacteria in order to stimulate an innate immune response and the fat body was examined under a fluorescent microscope to compare the amount of Dorsal protein found in the nucleus in the unchallenged vs. challenged larvae. An abundance of Dorsal protein in the cytoplasm of challenged mutant larvae would support the hypothesis that Dynactin is required for the nuclear translocation of Dorsal.
Diego De La Torre – Anti-Cancer Compounds Secreted by Ganoderma lucidum Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide; while many therapies are available, there is no cure. One of the most common cancer treatments is chemotherapy. While chemotherapy is an effective way to kill cancer cells, it is also harmful to non- cancerous cells. Humans have used remedies found in nature to treat health conditions for millennia. The majority of drugs available today come directly from plants or are modifications to the naturally occurring compounds.
This project aims to find a naturally occurring product that has selective cytotoxicity toward cancer cells. Ganoderma lucidum, the medical mushroom was cultured in vitro. Mushroom secretions were gathered and analyzed using a fast-protein liquid chromatography system (FPLC). A low molecular weight protein-containing polysaccharide was isolated. Tests were performed with the secretions on 96 well cytotoxicity assays and Matrigel. Viability data indicate that the isolated compound effectively reduces epithelial cancer cell viability while enhancing the viability of non-cancerous mammary epithelia. Future studies will focus on the molecular makeup of the compound and effective dosage range.
Derick DuFriend – Nucleotide Motif Frequency Comparison Between Eukaryotic Organisms
Epigenetics, or gene expression modifications without changes in the genetic code, has led to the discovery of significant regulatory patterns within genomes. These motifs, or commonly occurring short segments of repeating base pairs, perform a variety of functions including providing binding sites for transcription factors. With the increased sequencing of eukaryotic organisms, along with improved increases in computing power, there are now the technical capabilities to study patterns at a genome-wide level. For our initial study, we chose several common transcription factor binding site motifs: PITX2, POU1F1, HNF4A, POU5F1, MYOD1, SOX2, and KLF4 to determine their conservation levels across eukaryotic organisms. To complete this, consensus sequences were taken from the JASPAR database matrices. A consensus sequence was defined as a series of nucleotides with a positional frequency of each nucleotide greater than 50%. From these sequences, ORU’s supercomputer, TITAN, uses a short sequence recognition script to search the genome assemblies for each motif and compile a list of their locations. The number of matches from each genome showed consistency in a linear relationship for each motif as it relates to the size of the genome. Further study is required to study the relationship between these regions and gene expression rates.
Gerrit Van De Kieft – Effects of ECM Stiffness on Yap Expression
In 2023, it was estimated that there would be 297,790 new cases of breast cancer in women. Breast cancer, when compared to other forms of cancer, is more treatable. Due to its treatability, an abundance of knowledge has been gleaned as to what and how cancer develops. However, a lot is still unknown about the occurrence and proliferation of cancer cells, as well as how to stop its metastasis. The research we conducted in this paper was made to observe whether the Extra Cellular Matrix’s stiffness correlates with the expression rate of the oncogene Yap. As cancer proliferates and the tumor increases in size, the affected area grows in stiffness. This increase also increases the amount of the oncogene Yap expression. We utilized varying ECM stiffnesses in cell plates during the study to explore the relationship between the ECM stiffness and Yap expression in MD-MBA-468 breast cancer cells. Because of this discovery, a new form of cancer therapy can be developed, inhibiting cancer growth by reducing the skin thickness surrounding the cancerous tissue, decreasing Yap proliferation, and halting the spread of the mutated cells.
Christof Rösler – Objective Genome Sequence Comparison of the Hominidae Species Using a Supercomputer Algorithm to Reveal Phylogenetic Insights Phylogenetic trees for the Hominidae family were first created via morphology, then proteins, and finally genes. Within this family, the sister taxa Homo sapiens and Pan paniscus were theorized to be 96-98.4% genetically similar, comparing protein-coding genes. The ‘junk DNA’ neglected in this comparison claim is now known to play an essential role in epigenetics. New percent similarities across the whole genome via direct base pair comparison was performed using ORU’s GeneCompare algorithm on Titan, a supercomputer, to extrapolate percent similarities. The algorithm compares two FASTA files, finding exact matches of a minimum length between the two files, called granularity. Each chromosome was tested individually, a base against a target, until the whole genome was compared. The matches are recorded as genomic coordinates and provide insightful data between species. A more enriched percent similarity relationship was found between Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Gorilla gorilla, and Pongo abelli. The chromosomes expressed a lower and upper range of 59.66-93.1%, and a total mean of 81.8%, when Homo sapiens as the base. The phylogenetic relationships between the taxa in the Hominidae family matched current theories; a cladogram is proposed, placing Pan sister taxa in a clade, separated by two nodes from Homo sapiens.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a type of exocrine pancreatic cancer that develops in the pancreatic duct cells. PDAC is an aggressive malignancy with a median survival time of 10-12 months. It is predicted to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths by 2030. Therefore, it's imperative to understand the biology of PDAC and identify putative therapeutic targets. To sustain their proliferation, many cancer cells, including PDAC, exhibit rapid glucose consumption, with most of the glucose-derived carbon being secreted as lactate despite abundant oxygen availability (the Warburg effect). While the Warburg effect is an important feature of cancer, studies have shown that cancer can adapt to the rapidly changing tumor microenvironment by gaining diverse metabolic phenotypes, the "metabolic plasticity." The present study aims to understand the mechanisms of metabolic plasticity in pancreatic cancer cells while identifying the specific nutrients that sustain pancreatic cancer cell growth under metabolic stress. Using RT-PCR and immunoblotting, we studied metabolic gene expression associated with Glycolysis and glutaminolysis. Preliminary data shows that glutamine acts as a rescue mechanism to further cell survival. Understanding the metabolic vulnerabilities of cancer cells can help us to selectively target PDAC as well as other cancers.
Payden Farnsley – Bridging Disciplines on Mars: Integrating Biology and Artificial Intelligence for Plant Growth
Increasing demand for space exploration is seen as the key to long-term human survival as colonization of extraterrestrial planets come closer to reality. Plants provide food, energy, and oxygen for survival. The NASA-affiliated Plant the Moon competition challenges teams across multiple educational divisions to grow crops in simulated Mars soil (regolith) in a given growth period. Students at Southwestern Oklahoma State University have participated in this challenge and have studied interactions between microbes, Mars regolith, mammal fecal matter, and plant growth for food production. Mars regolith is sterile & devoid of organic matter. It behaves differently than earth soil; parameters involving plant growth have been tested, in addition to soil additives. Total plant yield, soil pH and seedling germination rates have been measured for lettuce, spinach, basil, and radishes, with some of these plants being grown successfully in Mars regolith. A joint research project between computer science and biology at SWOSU will implement artificial intelligence and perform parameter testing on soil additive concentrations and specific growth conditions. Using multiple parameter tests, we anticipate finding the best combination of growth conditions and concentrations for crop yield in extraterrestrial soils.
Rachel Uhlig & Joseph Alcuitas – Sexual Selection in Response to Varying Levels of Cultural Eutrophication
Sexually selected traits are expensive to build and maintain. This makes them condition-dependent and useful for making decisions about potential mates. However, the condition-dependence of these traits is also expected to make them hypersensitive to environmental change. We explored patterns of sexual selection in populations of amphipods in the genus Hyalella exposed to varying levels of nutrient pollution. These varying levels are likely due to fertilizer runoff from local farms. Higher levels of phosphorous, indicative of high nutrients, were predicted to lead to larger sexually selected traits, the posterior gnathopod (a claw-like trait) and second antenna.We collected amphipods from the lakes and compared male sexual trait sizes. We discovered that males collected from lakes with more nutrients tended to have larger sexual traits. Female choice may be compromised because poor quality males can build larger sexual traits. This could worsen the overall health of the population.
Danya Van Vuuren – Investigating Cancer-Associated Proteins During Hibernation in the Thirteen-Lined Ground Squirrel
The phenomenon of hibernation is a unique and complex process that still remains to be understood on a molecular level. Hibernation involves changes in pathways that control bodily functions in order to slow overall cellular activity. This is accompanied by significant changes in gene expression and cellular homeostasis. Anecdotal evidence suggests that animals that hibernate display resistance to cancer as many of the signaling pathways involved in tumor formation are altered. This includes molecules like p38 and ERK which are central to the stress-induced kinase pathways. Additionally, the transcription factor c-Myc is implicated in many human cancers and could play a role in mitosis regulation during torpor. This project aims to analyze changes in these proteins involved in regulating processes such as mitosis, apoptosis, and cell survival throughout the phases of hibernation in thirteen-lined ground squirrels. These proteins will be analyzed at multiple time points and in multiple tissues including the hypothalamus, skeletal muscle, white adipose tissue, and brown adipose tissue. The plasma of hibernating animals will also be used to treat cancer cells to identify possible anti-cancerous properties of torpor-associated proteins. This data could provide insight into how certain pathways can facilitate both tumor regulation and homeostasis during hibernation.
Kailyn Yeisley – Using Bacteria to Trigger the Innate Immune Response in Drosophila to Examine the Potential Role of Dynactin in Toll Signaling
The innate immune response is the body's initial non-specific defense against invading pathogens. It is initiated through the cellular Toll signaling pathway by bacteria and injury which leads to the production of certain antimicrobial peptides. These responses have been found in vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants, where the basic mechanisms that regulate them are conserved. In Drosophila, the Toll Signaling pathway is involved in both dorsal/ventral axis specification as well as innate immunity. Dorsal, an NF-κB related protein, a component of the Toll signaling pathway, is found to be expressed in both larval and adult fat body, an organ that functions like a vertebrate’s liver. After larval injury, the Toll signaling pathway is activated, which results in a rapid translocation of Dorsal from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. Once in the nucleus, Dorsal activates the transcription of various defense genes. The transport of essential biological materials throughout the cell requires the molecular motors, Dynein and Kinesin. Dynein associates with the protein complex Dynactin, and it is known to promote Dynein function by serving as an adaptor for cargo and enhancing processivity. It was hypothesized that Dynactin could be involved in the transport of Dorsal from the cytoplasm to the nuclear envelope. To test this, Drosophila dynactin mutant larvae were challenged by feeding with bacteria in order to stimulate an innate immune response and the fat body was examined under a fluorescent microscope to compare the amount of Dorsal protein found in the nucleus in the unchallenged vs. challenged larvae. An abundance of Dorsal protein in the cytoplasm of challenged mutant larvae would support the hypothesis that Dynactin is required for the nuclear translocation of Dorsal.
Diego De La Torre – Anti-Cancer Compounds Secreted by Ganoderma lucidum Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide; while many therapies are available, there is no cure. One of the most common cancer treatments is chemotherapy. While chemotherapy is an effective way to kill cancer cells, it is also harmful to non- cancerous cells. Humans have used remedies found in nature to treat health conditions for millennia. The majority of drugs available today come directly from plants or are modifications to the naturally occurring compounds.
This project aims to find a naturally occurring product that has selective cytotoxicity toward cancer cells. Ganoderma lucidum, the medical mushroom was cultured in vitro. Mushroom secretions were gathered and analyzed using a fast-protein liquid chromatography system (FPLC). A low molecular weight protein-containing polysaccharide was isolated. Tests were performed with the secretions on 96 well cytotoxicity assays and Matrigel. Viability data indicate that the isolated compound effectively reduces epithelial cancer cell viability while enhancing the viability of non-cancerous mammary epithelia. Future studies will focus on the molecular makeup of the compound and effective dosage range.
Derick DuFriend – Nucleotide Motif Frequency Comparison Between Eukaryotic Organisms
Epigenetics, or gene expression modifications without changes in the genetic code, has led to the discovery of significant regulatory patterns within genomes. These motifs, or commonly occurring short segments of repeating base pairs, perform a variety of functions including providing binding sites for transcription factors. With the increased sequencing of eukaryotic organisms, along with improved increases in computing power, there are now the technical capabilities to study patterns at a genome-wide level. For our initial study, we chose several common transcription factor binding site motifs: PITX2, POU1F1, HNF4A, POU5F1, MYOD1, SOX2, and KLF4 to determine their conservation levels across eukaryotic organisms. To complete this, consensus sequences were taken from the JASPAR database matrices. A consensus sequence was defined as a series of nucleotides with a positional frequency of each nucleotide greater than 50%. From these sequences, ORU’s supercomputer, TITAN, uses a short sequence recognition script to search the genome assemblies for each motif and compile a list of their locations. The number of matches from each genome showed consistency in a linear relationship for each motif as it relates to the size of the genome. Further study is required to study the relationship between these regions and gene expression rates.
Gerrit Van De Kieft – Effects of ECM Stiffness on Yap Expression
In 2023, it was estimated that there would be 297,790 new cases of breast cancer in women. Breast cancer, when compared to other forms of cancer, is more treatable. Due to its treatability, an abundance of knowledge has been gleaned as to what and how cancer develops. However, a lot is still unknown about the occurrence and proliferation of cancer cells, as well as how to stop its metastasis. The research we conducted in this paper was made to observe whether the Extra Cellular Matrix’s stiffness correlates with the expression rate of the oncogene Yap. As cancer proliferates and the tumor increases in size, the affected area grows in stiffness. This increase also increases the amount of the oncogene Yap expression. We utilized varying ECM stiffnesses in cell plates during the study to explore the relationship between the ECM stiffness and Yap expression in MD-MBA-468 breast cancer cells. Because of this discovery, a new form of cancer therapy can be developed, inhibiting cancer growth by reducing the skin thickness surrounding the cancerous tissue, decreasing Yap proliferation, and halting the spread of the mutated cells.
Christof Rösler – Objective Genome Sequence Comparison of the Hominidae Species Using a Supercomputer Algorithm to Reveal Phylogenetic Insights Phylogenetic trees for the Hominidae family were first created via morphology, then proteins, and finally genes. Within this family, the sister taxa Homo sapiens and Pan paniscus were theorized to be 96-98.4% genetically similar, comparing protein-coding genes. The ‘junk DNA’ neglected in this comparison claim is now known to play an essential role in epigenetics. New percent similarities across the whole genome via direct base pair comparison was performed using ORU’s GeneCompare algorithm on Titan, a supercomputer, to extrapolate percent similarities. The algorithm compares two FASTA files, finding exact matches of a minimum length between the two files, called granularity. Each chromosome was tested individually, a base against a target, until the whole genome was compared. The matches are recorded as genomic coordinates and provide insightful data between species. A more enriched percent similarity relationship was found between Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Gorilla gorilla, and Pongo abelli. The chromosomes expressed a lower and upper range of 59.66-93.1%, and a total mean of 81.8%, when Homo sapiens as the base. The phylogenetic relationships between the taxa in the Hominidae family matched current theories; a cladogram is proposed, placing Pan sister taxa in a clade, separated by two nodes from Homo sapiens.