Hello everyone! Sorry this is a day late, the disappointing loss to Portugal made me completely forget to update my blog!
This week’s post is to describe my research project this summer. As previously mentioned, I began my tenure in the Poss lab back in January 2014. During the Spring 2014 semester I worked on a forward genetic screen in an attempt to identify the mutated gene(s) responsible for a several regeneration mutants the lab created through an ENU (mutation causing chemical) mutagenesis event. My project this summer is to now characterize these mutants based on the information we have gathered thus far, such as the gene that was mutated during the initial mutagenesis event at the beginning of the genetic screen. Since beginning my summer research project I have been running whole mount in situ hybridizations, which is a protocol that visually shows the presence of a gene in the tissue. In this case I am performing in situ hybridizations on the fins of amputated mutant and wild type zebrafish to characterize the activation of different genes at the beginning of the regeneration process and to see if the mutant has an early-stage regeneration defect caused by the mutagenesis event or a late-stage regeneration defect.
This fits into the overall lab research since the goal of the lab is to further understand the regeneration process in the fin, heart, and spinal cord.
