The Impact of Periodic Stress on Human Cells

In Eukaryotic cells, stress granules are dynamic assemblies of RNA and protein that form when free, cytoplasmic RNAs accumulate. Although most stress inducers in the natural environment affect cells in variable concentrations and time, studies of stress granule dynamics have primarily focused on using acute, intense stresses. Our research objective is to determine whether stress granule assembly is different when U2OS cells are treated with multiple stress pulses instead of one sustained stress.