Thesis title: Study of expression and role of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors in Human Acute Myeloid Leukemia cell lines and involvement of L1-CAM in migration of mGluR1+ mouse melanoma cell lines
mGluRs are a family of G-coupled protein receptors with widespread expression in the central nervous system (CNS), some normal tissues, and in various cancers. The predominant functions of mGluRs in the CNS are modulating presynaptic neurotransmission but in cancers, mGluRs are involved in regulating cell proliferation.
Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a clonal, malignant disease of hematopoietic tissue and is the most common type of acute leukemia in adults and the elderlies. Despite the wide number of drugs available to treat this disease, there are many unmet needs in AML therapy; relapsed or refractory patients or those unable to receive intensive chemotherapy display a poor prognosis.
Skin cancer is described as the abnormal multiplication of skin cells, which is frequently detected in sun-exposed regions. Basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, cutaneous lymphoma, Kaposi sarcoma, and melanoma are the six primary forms. Melanoma is the most severe form of skin cancer and is caused by melanocyte transformation. In the United States, invasive melanoma is expected to account for about 100,000 new cases and over 7,000 fatalities from skin cancer in 2022.
In this study, there are two distinct studies, in one, we evaluated metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) to assess if one or more of mGluRs may be a putative therapeutic target in AML. We have found a novel, previously unknown role of mGluRs in AML. The second study is to use mGluR1+ mouse melanoma cell lines to determine if the presence of L1-CAM (CD171), a neural cell adhesion molecule 1 is involved in cell migration as shown previously in glioblastoma cells.