COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
regulates. I propose a research project to develop a transgenic system in Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies that will facilitate the identification of sequences in enhancers and promoters that are necessary for long distance communication. This system will use two distinct fluorescent protein genes in order to track proximal and remote gene activation in vivo, and will be easy to customize with different enhancer and promoter sequences, including mutant sequences. I anticipate certain enhancer mutations will disrupt long distance enhancer-promoter communication while leaving the enhancer’s pattern of activity intact. As promoters and enhancers are general components of animal genes, this approach can be applied to other species, such as humans and mice, to study similar long distance interactions.
Role of a soy protein Lunasin in Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease
STUDENTS Angela N Giaquinto ADVISORS Amit Singh LOCATION, TIME RecPlex, 11:00AM-12:30PM College of Arts and Sciences: Biology, Poster- Independent Research Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by a number of factors. One of the leading factors behind the onset of AD is the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brains of affected individuals. These plaques are formed with amyloid precursor protein (APP) is processed incorrectly and cleaved to be 42 amino acids long (Aβ42) instead of 40 (Aβ40) which are found within healthy individuals. These two extra amino acids cause the protein to become hydrophobic in nature and form plaques which aggregate around neurons in the brain. This aggregation induces oxidative stress on the neurons which then leads to cell death. Due to the conserved genetic properties of the Drosophila melanogaster, fruit fly, visual system with that of humans we have developed a Drosophila eye model. In this model the Aβ42 protein is misexpressed in the developing photoreceptors of the fly eye which results in extensive cell death of the photoreceptor neurons and produces a highly reduced eye field in the adult fly. My research focus is to understand the function of a soy protein called Lunasin in Alzheimer’s disease. It has been shown that Lunasin acts as an anti-inflammatory within the somatic cells. Inflammation of the brain is an observed characteristic of AD. Therefore, we investigated the effects of Lunasin on Aβ42 accumulation mediated neurodegeneration. Here we present the findings of our studies thus far.
Role of defective proventriculus (dve) in retinal determination during development
STUDENTS Sarah A Stalder ADVISORS Amit Singh LOCATION, TIME RecPlex, 11:00AM-12:30PM College of Arts and Sciences: Biology, Poster- Honors Thesis A complete understanding of the genetic basis of the fundamental process of eye development has not yet been fully understood. Recently the gene defective proventriculus (dve), which has been shown to be involved in midgut specification in Drosophila, has been found to be one of the key dorsal eye fate determination genes. Our preliminary data suggests that dve interacts with highly conserved Retinal Determination (RD) genes, twin-of-eyeless (toy), eyeless (ey), eyes absent (eya), sine oculis (so), and dachshund (dac), to control the eye field specification and differentiation. The aim of this project is to (i) place dve in hierarchy of RD genes, and (ii) test if dve can promote or block eye formation function of RD genes. We used conventional genetic approaches of tissue/domain specific gain-of-function and loss-of-function to test the interaction of dve with each of the RD genes individually to discern their role in eye development. We tested these interactions at different developmental stages of the life cycle of the fly such as larval eye primordium, pupal retina and adult compound eye. Here we will present the findings of this study to date.
Role of growth regulatory pathway in eye development and differentiation
STUDENTS Erika L Wittkorn ADVISORS Madhuri Kango-Singh, Amit Singh LOCATION, TIME RecPlex, 11:00AM-12:30PM College of Arts and Sciences: Biology, Poster- Graduate Research Key genetic pathways are utilized for multiple functions within organisms. The novel function of such pathways provides organisms with the ability to have increased complexity. This type of utilization of genetic pathways can be seen in a known growth regulatory pathway, the Hippo 18