STUDY OF PROGENITOR CELLS NICHE ALONG THE ORAL TONGUE IN A MURINE REPORTER SYSTEM.

DI GAUDIO A.; AYRE M.; RUBINSTEIN N; ANA R RAIMONDI

Mar del Plata

Congreso; Reunión Científica Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica; 2023

Sociedad Argentina de Investigacion clinica

The squamous epithelium in the oral mucosa relies on epithelial stem cells for self-renewal and tissue regeneration. Lingual keratinized epithelial cells have a rapid tissue turnover rate within mammals and are thought to be the source of SCC of the tongue. Our main goal is to map the anatomical subregions of the tongue while classifying niches of stem cells based on their oncogenic potential. Using a tamoxifen-inducible reporter line, K14-CreERTAM/TdTomato, we characterize the target cells along with their cellular products by analyzing diverse anatomical sub-sites of the tongue. We did a time-course analysis to study the appearance and loss of TdTomato (TOM) + cells. Tongue sub-sites: dorsal: D, ventral: V. Quantification by Image J. We confirmed that TOM expression occurs exclusively after tamoxifen induction. We quantitatively analyzed TOM+ cell density and fraction at 1, 5, and 16 weeks, and 8 months after induction (N=4-5 each time). Higher density and fraction of TOM+ cells were observed on V after 1 week, reaching values of 10.11.2 TOM+ cells/um and 0.640.08 compared to the D (8.00.8 TOM+ cells/um and 0.360.03 p