Xavier University of Louisiana XULA Digital Commons Festival of Scholars 2021 Role of Cytochrome C in Apoptosis During Breast Cancer Treatment Teresa Beamon Department of Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana Royce Hooks Department of Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana Degrick Cheatham Department of Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana Navneet Goyal Department of Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana Tulasi Ponnapakkam Department of Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xula_fos Part of the Chemistry Commons, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Commons, and the Oncology Commons Recommended Citation Beamon, Teresa; Hooks, Royce; Cheatham, Degrick; Goyal, Navneet; Ponnapakkam, Tulasi; and Foroozesh, Maryam, "Role of Cytochrome C in Apoptosis During Breast Cancer Treatment" (2021) Festival of Scholars 15 https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xula_fos/15 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by XULA Digital Commons It has been accepted for inclusion in Festival of Scholars by an authorized administrator of XULA Digital Commons For more information, please contact ksiddell@xula.edu Authors Teresa Beamon, Royce Hooks, Degrick Cheatham, Navneet Goyal, Tulasi Ponnapakkam, and Maryam Foroozesh This book is available at XULA Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xula_fos/15 Role of Cytochrome C in Apoptosis During Breast Cancer Treatment Teresa Beamon, Royce Hooks, Degrick Cheatham , Navneet Goyal, Tulasi Ponnapakkam, & Maryam Foroozesh Department of Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana, Drexel Dr., New Orleans, LA 70125 Drug Design Abstract Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women Various current cancer treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormone therapy, and radiation therapy Because of prolonged exposure, resistance to chemotherapy often arises Chemotherapeutic drugs and radiation therapy have been shown to increase intracellular ceramide levels Ceramide, a bioactive sphingolipid, is a powerful tumor suppressor molecule that is thought to induce apoptosis and inhibit proliferation As part of our ongoing efforts toward the synthesis of a potent anti-cancer drug, ceramide analog 315, (S,E)-3-hydroxy-2-(2-hydroxybenzylidene)amino-Ntetradecyl propanamide has been synthesized Ceramide analog 315 has been shown to induce apoptosis in vitro, and decrease tumor volume and size in in vivo studies In the present study, an attempt is made to corelate the cytochrome C levels with cell death during the treatment of chemo-resistant breast cancer cells with analog 315 Results y = 0.4166x + 0.2234 R² = 0.8957 Figure 1: Cytochrome C Standard Curve 2.5 • Globally, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women, with an estimated 2.2 million new cases diagnosed in 2020 (1) • There were approximately 685,000 deaths reported in 2020 from breast cancer worldwide (1) • The 5-year prevalence of breast cancer in all ages is reported to be 7.7 million (1) • About in U.S women (about 12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime (1) • Chemo and radiation therapies are thought to primarily exert anti-tumor effects through the activation of apoptosis, or programmed cell death pathways (2) • Analog 315 is a novel ceramide which was developed in our laboratory for the potential treatment of breast cancer • The development of novel agents that can induce programmed cell death or aid in overcoming resistance are expected to improve patients’ outcomes and prolong their survival • Therefore, this study focuses on determining the pathways involved in the treatment of breast cancer cells with ceramide analog 315 1.5 0.5 0 OD 450 Fig displays the observed optical density of each dilution plotted against the cytochrome c standard curve The standard accurately reflects cytochrome C content in samples Figures 2: Cytochrome C Levels in TNR Cell line 10 * *P