Evaluating intracellular targets of ArtinM to trigger cell death events on leukemia cells

• Grant number: 15/08560-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: August 03, 2015
• End date: August 02, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Immunology - Applied Immunology
• Principal Investigator: Maria Cristina Roque Antunes Barreira
• Grantee: Sandro Gomes Soares
• Supervisor: Nicholas J. Gay
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Cambridge, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/24201-5 - Determination of the autophagy signalling pathway triggered by lectin aiming at identifying new targets for drugs to treat leukemia, BP.PD

Abstract

Lectins have become a promising tool for the discovery of cell signaling pathways. Recently, we described that the lectin ArtinM can trigger leukemia cell death through a mechanism that apparently is independent on caspase and exhibit many features that resemble autophagy. The aim of this project is to elucidate the involvement of molecular chaperones in the endoplasmic reticulum on cell death induced by ArtinM in myeloid leukemia cells. The main focus is to investigate whether cell death induced by ArtinM is dependent on internalization and subsequent interaction with cytoplasm proteins. We expect to obtain data that will improve our investigation on cell death mechanisms induced in leukemia cells using as approach the cytoplasmic expression of ArtinM and silencing of the targets. (AU)