Rationale:

The purpose of today’s lab was to discuss the proposed research questions with our research leaders and begin reading through the literature to inform us about this project.

Tools:

• NCBI BLASTp
• PhagesDB
• PUBMED

Procedure:

• The group discussed with our research leader the potential of our proposed research question, and the methods concerning it.
• Once completed, the group began with BLASTp queries of both the holin and endolysin protein to determine any conserved domains that could be found in the proteins.
• After that, literature regarding the biochemical mechanisms of these proteins was sought after and read.

Results:

Both the holin and endolysin contain conserved domains

Few recent articles were found regarding the biochemical mechanisms behind the holin protein, but there was information that suggested the overall mechanism of interacting with the bacterial cell to promote lysis.

Conclusions:

The discovery of conserved domains can suggest that the mechanisms in which holins and endolysins interact with bacterial cell is conserved or highly similar across bacteriophages, so there must be some research regarding those mechanisms. It was discovered that holins initially begin as alpha helices and somehow manage to oligomerize into beta sheets to stop the proton motive force causing bacterial cell death.

Next Steps: 

The next steps for this experiment are to continue with researching the literature and fold the proteins to try and determine any similar characteristics across the holins and endolysins of different phages.