Date of Award
7-2-2024
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Microbiology and Immunology
First Advisor
Bryan Mounce
Abstract
Polyamines play critical roles in normal cellular processes and aid in cell survival. An important regulatory protein of polyamines is spermidine/spermine N1-acetyltransferase 1 (SAT1), which catalyzes the acetylation of polyamines, leading to their depletion through peroxisomal degradation. A mechanism of regulating SAT1 levels is a process called regulated unproductive splicing and translation (RUST), which generates an alternative mRNA splice variant, termed truncated SAT1 (tSAT1). During viral infection, viruses require polyamines for different stages of the viral life cycle, and SAT1 acetylates polyamines, rendering them unavailable for the virus to use, in response to type I interferon signaling. We hypothesize that viruses block SAT1 activity by promoting the tSAT1 splice variant, which, in turn, prevents the acetylation of polyamines, allowing the virus to use them. Other cell stresses have been shown to modulate SAT1 alternative splicing, and this may be a mechanism to promote cell survival. This thesis considers the function of RUST in the regulation of polyamine levels for viral infection and cellular survival in response to chemical and biological stresses.
Recommended Citation
Chu, Andrea K. W., "Alternative Splicing of a Polyamine Metabolism Gene in Response to Cell Stress" (2024). Master's Theses. 4523.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/4523
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
