Dna in an average human cell breaks 10 times per day. Natural proteins repair this damage and in general keep your genome intact. When mistakes are madem cell mutations can occur leading to serious problems such as cancer.
The various proteins that work to maintain your DNA in all of its proper coding are known but are not very well understood. Using TIRF microscopy this project is going to investigate the behavior of some of these proteins.
In the image above you can see the protein Mre11-1 acting to repair a strand of broken DNA. Mre11-1 is part of the MRN complex.
I will be working with the reparation protein NucS and observing its interactions with a free single strand of DNA. This is analogous to the types of DNA breaks that are seen in nature. In my case the protein will be fluorescently labeled so that we can see it clearly with TIRF. The goal will be to identify and study the mechanisms that NucS uses to repair the DNA.If this goes well we might move on to observing the interactions and cooperation among various proteins in the complex.
My Goals for the Summer:
-Learn how to prepare substrates
-Gain comfort and proficiency performing TIRF microscopy
-Increase independent thought in developing analysis-Acquire a sense for graduate work abroad
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