Pathways and Processes Affected By Pilocytic Astrocytoma
Hi this is the second abstract I wrote. It was published in GIDAS 2018 High School Research Conference.
Pathways and Processes Affected By Pilocytic Astrocytoma
Prasanna Padmanabham, 11th grade High Tech High School, San Diego, California, USA
Introduction: Brain cancer is the modern day death sentence. Most people can only live a few months, and maybe a few years if they are lucky. This paper will go over the connection between the important biological and KEGG pathways and pilocytic astrocytoma, the cancerous growth of astrocytes. Pilocytic astrocytoma also falls under the broad category of glioblastomas. Methods: The dataset GSE 50161 was obtained during a strategic search looking for pediatric brain cancer tissue analysis on the publically available NCBI database. This data contained different pediatric cancers, of which, pilocytic astrocytoma was studied. The data was analyzed using GEO2R and the first 300 under expressed proteins were then analyzed using string-db.com. Genes were then analyzed using GeneCards. Results: Multiple important pathways and genes were found that regulate synaptic plasticity, neuronal development and calcium channels. There were many proteins that were under expressed in the test group that were involved in neuronal development (p-value of 2.96e-05), calcium signaling pathway (p-value of 2.96e-05) and synaptic plasticity (6.45e-08). The gene GRIN2A was found to be associated with all three pathways. GRIN2A is associated with a glutamate-ion channel proteins and its activity is dictated by calcium influx. Conclusion: It is important to conduct more research about the gene GRIN2A since there is research supporting a connection between glioblastoma and calcium influx (Kim et al.). It is important to study GRIN2A in the context of these three pathways because it has been shown in mouse models that calcium signaling plays an important role in glutamate regulation which then is associated with neuronal development. Astrocytes are known to be involved in synaptic plasticity and their role is key for maintaining cognitive health (Singh et al.). Therefore, a decline in synaptic plasticity might be a result of pilocytic astrocytoma. In addition, changes in neuronal development is important because it has been shown in previous study that astrocytomas may originate from neuronal precursor cells3. Therefore, the gene GRIN2A should carefully be studied as it is involved in multiple pathways that have all been associated with astrocytoma. Keywords: Pilocytic Astrocytoma, GRIN2A, GSE50161, Personalized Medicine Resources:
1. Singh, A, and W C Abraham. “Astrocytes and Synaptic Plasticity in Health and Disease.” Experimental Brain Research., U.S. National Library of Medicine, June 2017
2. Kim, Joseph M., et al. “Overexpression of Calcium-Permeable Glutamate Receptors in Glioblastoma Derived Brain Tumor Initiating Cells.” PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0047846.
3. “Malignant Astrocytomas Originate from Neural Stem/Progenitor Cells in a Somatic Tumor Suppressor Mouse Model.” Cancer Cell, Cell Press, 5 Jan. 2009, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1535610808004091.
