A Study on the Potential Role of Stress Granules and Processing Bodies in Eliminating Oxidatively Damaged RNA

• Other Authors: Pourkalbassi, Delaram (author)
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Florida Atlantic University
• Subjects: Aging > Physiological aspects.; Oxidative stress.; RNA > Metabolism.
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004702

Oxidative stress (OS) is strongly implicated in age-related neurodegeneration and other diseases. Under OS, the production of excessive oxidants leads to increased damages to cellular components. Recently, RNA has been discovered as a major target of oxidative damage, including the creation of abasic sites. In this work, we developed a method for quantifying abasic RNA in cell. Using this method, we have examined the potential role of the RNA-processing cellular foci, stress granule (SG) and processing bodies (PB) in eliminating abasic RNA in situ. We demonstrated that RNA is a major target of oxidative damage, constituting the majority of OS-induced abasic nucleic acids in HeLa cell. Importantly, the level of abasic RNA is strongly correlated with SG abundance. Furthermore, inhibition of SG/PB formation causes accumulation of abasic RNA, suggesting that SG/PB participates in removing oxidized RNA and protects cells under OS, which offers novel targets for therapeutic intervention in age-related diseases. === Includes bibliography. === Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. === FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection