small talks: talks by students, for students <style type="text/css">  </style> </head> <body> <center>  <a href="http://dmse.mit.edu/"><img border=0 src="course3.jpg"></a> <a href="http://web.mit.edu/gso/faq/studentlifefee.html"><img border=0 src="gso.jpg"></a>  <a href="index.shtml"><b><font size=7><font color=black>small</font>TALKS</font><b></a> <a href="http://mtlweb.mit.edu/researchgroups/mems/"><img border=0 src="memsatmit.jpg"></a> <a href="http://rleweb.mit.edu/"><img border=0 src="rle.jpg"></a> <br> ♦ <i>talks by students, for students</i> ♦<br> Wednesdays, 4pm, 6-104<br> <a href="sponsors.shtml">sponsors</a><br> <a href="about.shtml">about small talks</a> </center> <p> 05.30.2007: Vasileios Dendroulakis (ChemE/BioE)<br> <i>Damaged building blocks of DNA: can they be used as indicators of inflammation?</i><br> <h4>Abstract:</h4> Chronic inflammation is intimately associated with human diseases such as cancer and this relation is thought to be based on the secretion of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species from specialized white blood cells at sites of inflammation: apart from eliminating infectious agents these reactive chemical mediators are also thought to cause damage to surrounding host cells. Among those mediators, nitric oxide radical (NO^? ) is produced at relatively high levels by activated macrophages and reacts with oxygen (O_2 ) to form nitrous anhydride (N_2 O_3 ), the major nitrosating agent responsible for deamination of DNA bases, giving rise to non-canonical nucleobases. Although products of deamination can be readily quantified in solutions of purified DNA exposed to NO^? and O_2 , work in our laboratory has shown little nucleobase deamination in genomic DNA from inflamed tissues in mice. These modest results have motivated us to shift the focus of our studies to the more solvent exposed nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA and RNA, as potential indicators of inflammation-related cell damage. In this talk I will describe our first steps towards the quantification of deaminated nucleotides in cells exposed to NO^? and O_2 . <p><p> <center> <small>Questions? Comments? Would you like to give a small talk?<br> [small-talks at mike india tango dot edu]<br> Oh, and sign up for our <a href="http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/small-talks-announce">announce list</a>! :)</small> </center> </body> </html>