| Summary: | Thesis advisor: Thomas C. Chiles === B-lymphocytes respond to environmental cues for their survival, growth, and differentiation through receptor-mediated signaling pathways. Naïve Blymphocytes must acquire and metabolize external glucose in order to support the bioenergetics associated with maintaining cell volume, ion gradients, and basal macromolecular synthesis. The up-regulation of glycolytic enzyme expression and activity via engaged B-cell receptor mediated-events was glucose-dependent. This suggests an essential role for glucose energy metabolism in the promotion of B cell growth, survival, and proliferation in response to extracellular stimuli. In addition, the activity of ATP-citrate lyase (ACL) was determined to be crucial for ex vivo splenic B cell differentiation to antibody-producing cells wherein B cells undergo endomembrane synthesis and expansion. This investigation employed knockout murine models as well as chemical inhibitors to determine the signaling components and enzymes responsible for glucose utilization and incorporation into membrane lipids. These results point to a critical role for phosphatidylinositol 3- kinase (PI3K) in orchestrating cellular glucose energy metabolism and glucosedependent de novo lipogenesis for B lymphocyte responses. === Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. === Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. === Discipline: Biology.
|
|---|
