- Collection:
- Atlanta University and Clark Atlanta University Theses and Dissertations
- Title:
- The over-expression of ERA in osteoblast-like cells, in vitro, 2000
- Creator:
- Mills, Ishara A.
- Date of Original:
- 2000-05-01
- Subject:
- Degrees, Academic
Dissertations, Academic - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
- Medium:
- theses
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- Previous investigations have shown that estrogen plays a significant role in the development and maintenance of bone in mammals. The abrupt loss of estrogen at menopause and subsequent bone loss supports this hypothesis. By over-expressing estrogen receptor -a (ERa) in osteoblast-like cells, this project begins to study the effects of estrogen on bone development and maintenance through the ERa signaling pathway. The specific aims were to clone an osteoblast-specific promoter (i.e., rat osteocalcin promoter) upstream of the ERa cDNA and introduce this construct into osteoblast-like cell lines (i.e. MC3T3-E1 and ROS 17/2.8 cells). The functionality of the osteoblast-specific ERa construct was investigated by utilizing an estrogen-responsive chloramphenical acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter construct, which contains an estrogen responsive element (ERE) upstream of the CAT gene. The basic regulation of the osteoblast -specific promoter in the osteoblast -like cells was determined by performing co-transfection assays using a CAT reporter system. The osteoblast-specific ERa construct was introduced into a C57Blk/J6 mouse by using transgenic technology. The creation of an osteoblast-specific ERa expressing mouse can then be used to measure over-expression of the ERa in a wild type genetic background with future breeding into an estrogen receptor-alpha knock out (a ERKO) background, enabling us to understand estrogens effect on bone development and osteoporosis through the ERa pathway, in vitro.
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:2000_mills_ishara_a
- Rights Holder:
- Clark Atlanta University
- Holding Institution:
- Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
- Rights:
-
