Andrew Hale, Matthew Dutzi, & Dr. William Munroe
Polychlorinated-Biphenyls (PCB) are a category of persistent chemicals. PCBs are slightly soluble in water and endure in the environment for long periods, leading to water supply contamination and PCBs status as a forever chemical. PCBs are known to induce oxidative stress on cancer cell lines, oxidative stress is a phenomenon where reactive oxygen species are increased. These molecules easily degrade DNA leading to its infamous status as a cancer causing chemical. S. cerevisiae is a unicellular eukaryotic yeast that share several very similar pathways with H. sapiens; S. cerevisiae is frequently used to study the anti-cancer BCL-2 pathway which is a combination of proteins that induces cell death in cells that have genomic damage. S. cerevisiae has several proteins that contain BH3 domains, a structural motif that a induces cell death when activated. S. cerevisiae and H. sapiens both have proteins that have BH3 domains to induce apoptosis and prevent DNA damage. This project aims to induce a proteomic change in S. cerevisiae via treatments with a common PCB, Aroclor-1254, to determine the change in S. cerevisiae’s proteome. A microtiter plate assay was developed to determine the effect Aroclor-1254 had on S. cerevisiae’s growth rate. Next, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis was performed to identify the isoelectric points, molecular weights, and relative concentration of individual proteins in S. cerevisiae’s proteome. Upon adding Aroclor-1254, there was a xxx(+/-xxx)% reduction in cell growth rate. A protein of interest was identified via the analyses of two-dimensional gels. The protein of interest has an approximate isoelectric point of xxx and molecular weight of xxxkDa. Further work aims to confirm the identity of this protein through mass spectral analyses.