Tumors Arise Within the Colon

Tumors Arise Within the Colon

Jatin Roper, Tuomas Tammela

MIT Department of Biology, Koch Institute at MIT

Generating mice with cancer is often time consuming and difficulty because of the need for genetic mutant mice. For this project, we deleted the Apc gene directly in the mouse colon using colonoscopy and the gene editing tool called CRISPR/Cas9. In this image, colon epithelial cells (those cells that are able to develop into tumors) are shown in green, while stromal cells (which cannot form colon tumors) are bright red. The colon tumor is yellow and arises from the epithelial cells (i.e., combination of red and green). This model is important because it allows us to directly and efficiently edit genes in the adult mouse colon.

We will use these novel transplantation approach to study how diverse physiological states, such as aging, cancer, high fat diet, and caloric restriction, regulate intestinal stem cell function and cancer initiation.     

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