From Kristian Hargadon, Assistant Professor of Biology at Hampden-Sydney

Charlie Hand ‘14 has been working with me on a project involving shRNA-mediated gene silencing in melanoma cell lines.  In general terms, we are trying to understand the mechanisms by which melanoma tumors suppress the activity of dendritic cells, an immune system cell that plays a critical role in the induction of anti-tumor immune responses. Specifically, it has been observed that the highly aggressive and immunosuppressive murine melanoma cell line B16-F1 produces higher levels of the immunosuppressive factors TGFbeta and VEGF-A than do less tumorigenic melanomas.  In order to gain insights into the mechanistic roles of these two molecules in the suppression of dendritic cell maturation and activation, Charlie and I are working to permanently knock down the expression of these two genes.  Generating B16-F1 melanoma cell lines with knocked down expression of these genes will enable the evaluation of dendritic cell maturation/activation in the absence of these molecules and might suggest strategies for interfering with tumor-mediated immunosuppression of dendritic cells.