OCR Text |
Show EFFECTS OF SPONTANEOUS DELETERIOUS MUTATIONS ON GENOME-WIDE EXPRESSION IN CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS All organisms are subject to naturally occurring spontaneous deleterious mutation (SDM) that are harmful to the health, reproduction, longevity and behavior of individuals. These SDMs may determine biological phenomena, such as the evolution of sex, inbreeding depression, and extinction for endangered species. In the laboratory we have many worm lines that have accumulated mutations from the original founder line N2 under relaxed selection over 450 generations. Millions of worms of the same age were collected from a mutation-accumulation line and from the N2 control lines in parallel. Six replicas (repeats) of each line in parallel were per- formed for a total of 12 samples. Total RNA, then mRNA was extracted from these samples. Microarray analysis of changes in mRNA concentration are performed for each gene in the entire genome (in total 19,300) in mutation-accumulation lines versus the N2 lines. The microarray analyses are performed at Stanford University in the laboratory of Dr. S. Kirn. A comparative analysis of microarray results between mutation-accumulation lines, and N2 control lines reveals the fraction of altered gene expression that is harmful for the organisms. These results will help to evaluate the impact of harmful mutations on the genome-wide gene expression. Robert Craig Lewis Senior Biology morningstar_80@yahoo.com Faculty Sponsor: Larissa Vassilieva Dept. of Biology Vassilieva@biology.utah.edu 61 |