Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Walstrom, Katherine

Area of Concentration

Biology

Abstract

Muscular dystrophy is a term referring to a group of several disorders with symptoms resulting in the wasting away and weakening of muscular tissue. In this the condition ranges from different levels of severity. One example of a more severe form is Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) which significantly shortens the lifetime of those affected. Current treatment for these conditions are surgery, medication, and physical therapy. To add to the current treatments, bee venom has been shown to be effective in treating a large variety of conditions such as arthritis and cancer. Using Caenorhabditis elegans, we examine the effect bee venom has on burrowing behavior. Three C. elegans strains: N2 Wild Type, BZ33 dys-1, and LS292 dys-1 were tested. To test the validity of the burrowing assay, Prednisone, which is an anti- inflammatory glucocorticoid that is currently a treatment option for a wide range of condition including muscular dystrophy, acted as the positive control during experimentation. The findings indicated that bee venom is not an effective treatment for these C. elegans models of muscular dystrophy.

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