Cadmium and mercury are among the most toxic metals and can be a serious threat to human health. A clear understanding how cells respond, especially in terms of genetically controlled responses to these two metals, is required in order to develop appropriate prevention and treatment procedures that can protect humans from toxic exposure to these metals. Therefore, this study is aimed at elucidating the genetically programmed response to cadmium and mercury exposure in HeLa cells. Two different approaches were employed for this study. Differential expression patterns of mRNAs were studied by differential display reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (DDRT-PCR) and changes in protein composition of HeLa cells were monitored by two-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis. The results showed that transcripts of particular genes were altered by cadmium and/or mercury exposure. These gene are aspartyl/asparginyl beta-hydroxylase (asph), monocyte to macrophage differentiation associated antigen (MMD), and ribosomal protein S24 (rpS24) genes. In addition, some protein spots from 2D gels were found to be altered in their levels as a result of cadmium and/or mercury exposure. The possible roles of asph, MMD and rpS24 genes in response to cadmium and mercury are discussed and further studies are suggested.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.84491 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Charoensri, Nicha |
| Contributors | Acheson, Nicholas H. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Microbiology and Immunology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002141081, proquestno: AAINQ98224, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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