Office 250 / Lab 258
PA Biotechnology Center
3805 Old Easton Road
Doylestown, PA 18902
TEL: 215-489-4907
FAX: 215-489-4920
YingHsiu.Su@drexelmed.edu
Ph.D., 1992, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL
Keywords:
Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1, Viral Latency, Virology, Cancer Detection, Molecular Diagnosis, Circulating DNA, Urine DNA.
Research Interest:
Research in my laboratory is focused on herpes simplex virus (HSV) latency, and detection of cancer DNA markers in urine.
HSV establishes latent infections in its natural human host. Reactivation of the viral genome from this latent state occurs sporadically. We are interested in the mechanism of viral latency and reactivation by using the tissue culture model (NGF-differentiated PC12 cells) that we have developed. The over all goal of this project is to determine the molecular mechanisms whereby HSV-1 and neuronal cells interact. Rat phaeochromocytoma (PC12) cells, in response to nerve growth factor (NGF), differentiate, extend long neurites, and acquire many biochemical properties characteristic of the peripheral nervous system. We have shown that NGF differentiated PC12 cells can support "long-term", quiescent infection of HSV-1 which resembles in vivo latency.
Several questions are being investigated using this in vitro HSV latency model. First, what is the physical structure of latent HSV DNA? How is the HSV DNA modified such that gene expression is suppressed and the DNA remains stable state inside the nucleus? Second is to explore the remarkable observation that HSV-1 infected NGF differentiated PC12 cells survive in tissue culture (remain attached to the flask substratum and viable) for much longer periods of time than do uninfected controls by following the results obtained from the microarray experiments comparing the HSV-1 infected and uninfected control at the time of detachment about to take place in the control group. Finally, in collaboration with Dr. Shelly Burger at the Wistar Institute in chromatin study of latent HSV-1 DNA, and Dr. Fraser at the University of Pennsylvania, information gained from our in vitro studies will be applied to an in vivo animal model of HSV latency and. Thus, our work using the PC12 cell model of HSV latency should contribute significantly to further dissecting pathways of establishment and reactivation of latent HSV infection in humans.
The other exciting line of research is to explore the potential to use DNA in urine for cancer detection. This study is supported by the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) of National Cancer Institute. DNA recovered from urine represents not only from cells of the urinary tract, but also from the apoptotic cells of the distal sites of body. Thus, DNA isolated from urine has the potential to be used to predict, diagnoses and forecast outcomes related to the malignant with genetic or epigenetic modification. Our current project is to study k-ras mutation in colorectal cancer and hyper-methylation of the promoter regions of tumor suppressor genes in hepatocellular carcinoma and colorectal cancer to explore urine DNA based technology for tumor screening and early detection.
Publications Since 2004:
- Wang, Mengjun, Block, Timothy.M., Steel, Laura, Brenner, Dean E. and Su, Ying-Hsiu Preferential Isolation of Fragmented DNA Enhances the Detection of Circulating Mutated k-ras DNA. Clinical Chemistry 50 (1) 211-213. (2004)
- Ying-Hsiu Su, Mengjun Wang, Dean E. Brenner, Alan Ng, Hovsep Melkonyan, Samuil Umansky, Sapna Syngal, and Timothy M. Block. Human urine contains small, 150-250 nucleotide sized, soluble DNA derived from the circulation and may be useful in the detection of colorectal cancer * Journal of Molecular Diagnostics 6, 101-107. (2004).
- Ying-Hsiu Su, Mengjun Wang, Timothy M. Block, Olfert Landt, Irina Botezatu, Ol’ga Serdyuk, Anatoly Lichtenstein, Hovsep Melkonyan, L. David Tomei, Samuil Umansky Transrenal DNA as a diagnostic tool: important technical notes. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 1002: 81-89 (2004).
- Alan K. Ng, Benjamas Aaimkitsumrit, Mengjun Wang, Timothy M. Block, Emily Clementi, Ting-Ting Wu, John Taylor, and Ying-Hsiu Su. Construction of a herpes simplex virus type I mutant with only 3-nucleotide change in the branchpoint region of the Latency Associate Transcript (LAT) and the stability of its 2-kb LAT intron. J. Virology 78, 12097-12106. (2004)
- Su, Ying-Hsiu, Wang, Mengjun, Benjamas Aiamkitsumrit, Brenner, Dean E. and Block, Timothy M. Detection of K-ras mutation in urine of patients with colorectal cancer. Cancer Biomarkers 1, 177-182. (2005)
- Su, Ying-Hsiu, B. Aiamkitsumrit, X. Zhang, N. W. Fraser, and T. M. Block. The stability of herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) genomes in infected cells undergoing viral induced apoptosis. Journal of NeuroVirology 12 (5):375-386 (2006)
- Ying-Hsiu Su, Xianchao Zhang, Nigel W. Fraser, and Timothy M. Block. Evidence that the immediate early gene product ICP4 is necessary for HSV-1 DNA circularization in infected cells. Journal of Virology 80 (23): 11589-11597 (2006)
- Sery, Theodore W., Su, Ying-Hsiu, Eagle, Ralph Jr, Ueda, Masumi, and Yamamoto, Nobuto. Experimental Autoimmune Uveitis simulating a clinical bacteremia. Ocular Immunology and Inflammation 14: 277-283 (2006)
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