Oxidative stress has been implied in a wide variety of diseases, such as cancer,
myocardial infarction, and neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson's diseases
(PD). PD is characterized by the degeneration of dopaminergic (DA) neurons; genetic
studies have identified gene mutations causal to PD. Accumulating studies hypothesize
that these genes protect DA neurons against oxidative stress. However, lack of
experimental tools to target oxidative stress in specific cells has prevented direct
evaluation of the hypothesis. We established a novel method to use KillerRed (KR), a
genetically-encoded protein that generates radicals upon light activation. We showed its
efficacy in live animals by cell-specific ablation of neurons in C. elegans. We applied KR to degenerate DA neurons. By controlling the level of stress via activation light, the
protective role of PD-gene, LRRK2, against oxidative stress was confirmed. Thus, we
established a method to address the role of oxidative stress in a cell-specific manner.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/33423 |
| Date | 22 November 2012 |
| Creators | Fu, Donald Wai-Bong |
| Contributors | Suzuki, Hiroshi |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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