Tumour-Suppressor Knockdown as a Strategy for Peripheral Nerve Regeneration: The Effects of PTEN and Rb

Date
2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Tumour-suppressors, such as PTEN and Rb, function to limit growth and proliferation. In post-mitotic peripheral sensory neurons, their knockdown may be utilized to promote regenerative growth. The goal of this thesis was to evaluate the effects of PTEN and Rb knockdown on peripheral nerve regeneration. Towards this goal I first addressed technical challenges, improving on a neuronal culture and immunostaining protocol. In assessing Rb knockdown I found increases in neuritic branching, but use of the PTEN inhibitor bpV(pic) was ineffective on neurite outgrowth, and therefore my results with combined Rb knockdown and PTEN inhibition were inconclusive. I also evaluated the phenotype of a PTEN conditional knockout mouse where PTEN is deleted from peripheral sensory neurons and found that they exhibited enlarged nerves with supernumerary myelinated axon profiles and a corresponding increase in SNAP amplitudes. Loss of phenotype was observed in a subsequent generation, pointing to complications in the Cre-lox conditional knockout system.
Description
Keywords
Biology--Cell, Biology--Molecular, Neuroscience
Citation
Eaton, S. (2016). Tumour-Suppressor Knockdown as a Strategy for Peripheral Nerve Regeneration: The Effects of PTEN and Rb (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28532