Lauren’s chalk talk: investigating a signaling pathway in the innate immune system

The innate immune system is highly complex with its intricate maps of signaling pathways and hard-to-remember, long protein names. It’s quite remarkable that this large network can detect pathogens, initiate a number of intracellular processes, and signal for a coordinated body-wide response. Lauren’s project in the Horner lab is particularly exciting because drawing a fuller picture of the RIG-I pathway would help us better understand how the innate immune system responds to an invasion of RNA viruses.  Lauren dived into a lot of the molecular biology details and did an amazing job of explaining her experimental design. More specifically, She’s testing whether 14-3-3e binds to the LIR motifs of RIG-I. Her project involves making plasmids that contain mutated versions of RIG-I, transfecting a RIG-I KO cell line with the plasmids, and seeing if there are changes in binding and downstream functions. After covering the relevant background information and giving an overview of the project, Lauren discussed the specific lab techniques she will be using, such as western blot and co-ip. Lauren not only demonstrated a great depth of knowledge of the system she’s studying but also gave a great explanation of the step-by-step approach of her methods. Studying pathways in the immune system has implications in infectious disease as well as rheumatology, and I look forward to seeing what Lauren will add to the important but incomplete map of the RIG-I pathway.