Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Impact Of Folate Deficiency On The Base Excision Repair Pathway: Analysis Of Enzyme Coordination In Response To Dna Damage And Imbalanced Repair, Amanda Pilling

Wayne State University Dissertations

The condition of folate deficiency has been implicated in carcinogenesis, with the strongest evidence formulated in colon cancer. The role of folate in DNA repair, DNA synthesis and methylation reactions renders this nutrient an valuable target for studying the onset and progression of cancer. Using molecular techniques to determine gene and protein expression, enzyme activity and methylation status elucidates the mechanism of DNA repair and damage in folic acid deficient animals in response to carcinogen. The findings presented in this study indicate failure to remove and repair damage in the condition of folate deficiency and suggest that the accumulation of …

Hedgehog Signaling: A Potential Therapeutic Target For Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, Ma'in Yehya Maitah

Wayne State University Dissertations

The American Cancer Society estimated that 222,520 Americans were diagnosed with lung cancer and 157,300 died of lung cancer in 2010 (Jemal et al. 2009, 225-249;Jemal et al. 2011, 69-90). The clinical outcome of patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the major lung cancer sub-types, is very poor, which calls for innovative research for finding novel therapeutic targets and agents for better treatment outcome.

Emerging evidences have suggested that a phenomenon called Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), which shares similar molecular characteristics with cancer stem-like cells, contributes to lung cancer treatment failure. In view of the fact that EMT process …