Sophia Krans

Date of Award

2025

First Advisor

Dr. Jessica Robbins

Second Advisor

Dr. David Myers

Third Advisor

Dr. Anne O’Dwyer

Abstract

There is ongoing research utilizing crown ethers as drug carrier systems due to their ion specificity. 12-crown-4, the smallest crown ether, is specific to the lithium cation. 12 crown-4 was used to monitor lithium-ion uptake in wild-type Schizosaccharomyces pombe (S. pombe), a fission yeast. This was done by examining the growth rates of S. pombe on yeast media that contains a lithium salt (LiCl), media containing only 12-crown-4, media that contains 12-crown-4 and LiCl, and stand-alone media. The salt concentrations were kept at the threshold to promote some growth to quantify lithium uptake. It was hypothesized that yeast will grow less when 12-crown-4 is integrated with the LiCl compared to the stand-alone media and the LiCl without 12-crown-4. If this is true, then that suggests that the presence of 12-crown-4 allowed the yeast to take up more lithium ions than without 12-crown-4, hindering their growth more substantially. Moreover, this would indicate that an injectable and protected form of the lithium-ion in lithium carbonate exists as a treatment for bipolar disorder and may be a source of further research. The results of this study demonstrate that the presence of 12-crown-4 likely allowed the yeast to take up more lithium ions than without 12-crown-4, which resulted in more substantial growth deficits. The cell growth on the LiCl-12C4 combination plates ranged from 8.82% to 25.7% of the total plate area over a 97-hour period. This is less than the LiCl plates, which ranged from 9.57% to 34.1% over the same period, and substantially less than the control plates, which ranged from 21.13% to 32.6% of the total plate area.

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