2009 UALC
Mats Ljungman, PhD
The University of Michigan
Research Project:
Regulation of Myc and microRNA in small cell lung cancer
Summary:
Production of the myc oncogene is frequently increased in small cell lung cancers and is thought to contribute to the aggressive phenotype of SCLC. However, this increase in myc is not associated with gene amplification. Dr. Ljungman is investigating the role of mRNA stability and microRNA (miRNA) regulation of myc protein levels using a newly-developed, novel approach.
More Content:
Final Report
Dr. Ljungman found that alterations in mRNA stability contribute to increase in myc in some SCLC cell lines and that turnover (degradation) of a particular miRNA may be a more important marker of activity. The team had a major breakthrough in year two when they successfully transitioned from using real-time RT-PCR arrays, which is capable of assessing expression of 84 genes in an experiment, to deep sequencing techniques. This enabled the team to study all expressed genes in a single experiment. Dr. Ljungman has named this new technique BruChase-Seq, and is currently performing additional experiments. In summary, this project has generated the first detailed description of the “transcriptome” and “RNA stabilome” in a SCLC cell line.