| Description |
Comparative Oncology is an approach that integrates and connects commonly occurring cancers seen in animals, into studies focused on cancer biology, prevention, and treatment in humans. Studies show that natural mechanisms can suppress cancer 1,000 times more adequately in certain animals than in humans and that incidence of cancer does not correlate with the number of cells in an organism. Understanding how evolution has allowed for effective cancer suppression in larger animals like elephants, will lead to improved cancer prevention methods to be used for humans, an effort of this study. The low rate of cancer within elephants is seemed to be caused by the increased number of Tp53 genes, a tumor suppressor gene, in the elephant genome and the presence of numerous retrogenes. Using Leiomyosarcoma, also known as LMS or soft tissue sarcoma, as a model we hoped to determine the apoptosis efficiency of the elephant and human p53 vectors in p53 varying LMS cells. We hoped to see more apoptosis occurring in LMS cells treated and transfected with combinations of elephant p53/R9 and Doxorubicin vectors. To test and answer the above research question, four leiomyosarcoma cell lines were transfected and treated with combinations of elephant p53 (Ep53), R9, human p53 (Tp53), and doxorubicin vectors. Incucyte analysis was done for the different cell lines to track the change in caspase activity and apoptosis in the leiomyosarcoma cell lines depending upon the vectors they were transfected with. Results from these analyses showed higher levels of apoptosis in the leiomyosarcoma cells treated with the elephant p53, R9, and Ep53-R9- Dox vectors in comparison to the human p53 vector suggesting that elephant p53, R9, and Doxorubicin may work together in increasing the apoptosis of human LMS cancer cells and therefore suppress cancer more efficiently than human p53 and Doxorubicin alone. |
