Research

Margaret Briehl's Research Project

Project Goals

• To determine whether uranium interacts with mammalian cells in a way that could cause cancer.
• To investigate yeast as a model system for understanding how uranium interacts with eukaryotic cells.

Mammalian cells, which are resistant to oxidative stress (dark blue bars), tolerate higher concentrations of uranly acetate than oxidative stress-sensitive cells (light blue bars). The bars show the number of cells that grew, during a 48 hour period, in media containing the indicated concentration of uranyl acetate. The values plotted are relative to growth in media without uranyl acetate. This result could mean that uranium harms mammalian cells at least in part by causing oxidative stress.

Yeast were grown in media made with uranium-contaminated well water from the Blackfalls community (green symbols and line) or purified laboratory water (blue symbols and line). The similar growth suggests that it will be feasible to use yeast for testing whether the uranium in the well water gets into cells and causes damage that could lead to cancer.