Eve Alicia Painter | 2024 I.S. Symposium

Name: Eve Alicia Painter
Title: Profiling the Secretome of iPSC Cardiomyocytes Using High Resolution-Mass Spectrometry for Leigh Syndrome Biomarker Discovery
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Minor: Environmental Science
Advisors: Paul Edmiston; Ellyn Evans (second reader)

The goal of this research is to determine if the secretome of cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be used to determine potential biomarkers of Leigh syndrome (LS) from the excreted metabolic profile of diseased cells. Small molecules in depleted media from cardiomyocytes were measured using liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS) to determine prospective biomarkers of a mitochondrial disease known as LS. LC-QTOF-MS was used to compare the metabolic profiles of 4 LS samples to 4 control group cardiomyocytes to determine metabolites unique from the non-depleted media. Small molecule metabolites unique from the depleted cell culture media were identified using the MS/MS fragmentation pattern. Glutathione and pyrroline hydroxycarboxylic acid were identified in the depleted media LS samples. The project determined that the secretome from iPSCs can aid in our understanding of metabolomics in relation to diseases like Leigh syndrome, however there are still many challenges to overcome including: the large number of background molecules and in complete metabolite libraries.

Posted in Symposium 2024 on May 6, 2024.