Honors Program Theses

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Open Access Honors Program Thesis

First Advisor

David McClenahan

Keywords

Adenosine triphosphate--Physiological effect; Inflammation;

Abstract

The purpose of this research project was to study the effects that extracellular ATP has on F-actin levels in cells containing the P2X7 purinergic receptor. MAC-T cells which express the receptor were exposed to various levels of ATP and stained to undergo flow cytometry. In this case, F-actin was labeled with 488 phalloidin which was able to be detected by the flow cytometer. This was done in conjuction with controls to show how ATP exposure affected Factin levels. Based on these results, the cytoskeletal changes taking place in the cell in response to ATP were able to be measured and studied.

Results showed that once ATP was present at high enough concentrations to sufficiently activate P2X7, F-actin levels increased. This increase was most intense shortly after treatment, peaking between 15 and 60 minutes post-exposure. The effects diminished after that point and by 2 hours post-exposure, F-actin levels began to decline. This data has possible implications in cell permeability during inflammatory processes and could serve as a basis for understanding the mechanism by which permeability increases.

Year of Submission

2013

Department

Department of Biology

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

5-2013

Object Description

1 PDF file (28 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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Hircock,Taylor_hpt.pdf (531 kB)

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