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Access Type

Campus Access

Document Type

thesis

Degree Program

Food Science

Degree Type

Master of Science (M.S.)

Year Degree Awarded

2010

Month Degree Awarded

May

Abstract

Sarcoma is a type of cancer in the connective tissues including bone, cartilage and adjacent adipose tissue. Osteosarcoma is a type of sarcoma specific to bone, as “osteo” comes from the Greek work, “osteon,” or “bone.” Osteosarcoma is a typically aggressive type of bone-forming mesenchymal cancer/ bone malignancy which comprises approximately 20% of primary bone cancers and 5 % of pediatric tumors overall. Four hundred children and adolescents are diagnosed with osteosarcoma in the US each year. Although the survival rate of patients with osteosarcoma has improved over time, osteosarcoma is still the second highest cause of cancer-related deaths in the pediatric age group. This is due, in part, to an inherent or acquired resistance to the chemotherapeutic agents, so it is critical to develop treatment strategies to prevent and/or treat this type of cancer.

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is a collective term used to describe positional and geometric isomers of linoleic acid, in which two double bonds are in conjugation. It occurs naturally in many dairy and meat products of ruminant animals. Upon the discovery of CLA as an anticancer component in the 1980s, CLA has been shown to be an effective prevention tool in a number of animal cancer models. It has been suggested that one of the main targets of CLA is non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug-activated gene 1 (NAG-1), which is a key regulator of apoptosis. Thus, the overall goal of this proposed research is to determine CLA’s anticancer effect with the involvement of NAG-1 in an osteosarcoma model.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/1274760

First Advisor

Yeonhwa Park

COinS