Hi researchers,
I plan to examine the effects of a natural product on the cervical softening. Cervical softening is controlled by the expression of 3 genes. I can determine the extent of softening by measuring the expression of these 3 genes. Can I use cervical epithelial cell lines as models to measure the gene expression of those 3 genes? How can gene expression be measured in cell lines? Also, how can I expose the cell lines to these natural products (raspberry tea leaf)?
Any suggestions/ alternate methods/ ideas are much appreciated!
You can extract RNA from the cell lines (treated group and control) and then do qPCR for the expression of your three genes of interest. For your natural products use a chlorofom:methanol:water extraction and use a rotary evaporator to dry before resuspending in a small volume of DMSO. You can then add a volume of that to your cell culture media. As for how good your cell line will be for modelling cervical softening, I cannot tell. I advise using a positive control.