Uncontrolled Cell Division and Migration of Q neuroblasts in Mutant Strains of C. elegans

Abstract

Cancer is one of the most prevalent and deadly diseases in today's society, affecting millions of people around the globe. Uncontrolled cell division and migration which are two of the six major hallmarks of cancer have been studied extensively in vitro, however in vivo these hallmarks are not well understood. We used the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode worm as our model organism in order to study these two hallmarks. In unfavorable environmental conditions such as starvation, C. elegans can enter a developmental arrest in where certain cell metabolism ceases to continue, this stage is known as L1 arrest. Normally in L1 arrested worms, there are 2 distinct Q neuroblast cells which are precursors of sensory and interneurons that do not divide and migrate. However, when we mutate certain genes, we noticed that the two Q neuroblasts inappropriately divided and migrated, this suggests that we have identified a good model to study uncontrolled cell division and migration. We have already found one gene that when mutated, results in the Q neuroblasts inappropriately dividing and migrating at L1 arrest, now we are looking for other mutated genes that can cause this phenotype, this ultimately allows us to identify new mechanisms that cause an increased risk of cancer.