03/27/19

Rationale:

to learn to conduct individual research, from the process of making a research question, to designing the methods and concluding from the acquired results.

Procedure:

1. Coaches were consulted for a final verification and the research began
2. Group researched and compiled more information on the topic of Start site preferences, exploring two research papers for reference
3. question was edited and finalized
4. tools to be used were listed in the QTM and a schedule was made
5. the group began acquiring data on start site preferences

Results

Title: Analysis of start site preferences among Arthrobacter Phage clusters and the effects of different start sites on resultant protein structures

Background: there are three possible start codons that initiate translation. Each codon produces three different proteins. The possible protein products are methionine, valine and leucine. Each has a different structure. We attempt to see if the structure of the product protein of a gene sequence changes if a different start codon is used, as intermolecular forces between the proteins forms the structure. If the structure is different, further research can be done to see why one structure is preferred over another. If the structure is the same, why would that start codon be preferable than the other.

Guiding Question:

Can a different start site affect the translation of the gene sequence? Will it change the structure of the product protein? If the structure does not change, is there a possible reason to prefer a certain start codon over another?

Bioinformatic tools: SwissModel , NCBI BLAST, PhagesDB,

Research Articles:

http://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC509299&blobtype=pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9299334

Conclusion

this research will require a great deal of data collection as there are a little more than 200 sequenced arthrobacter phages. enough data can be collected for the research in the given time.

Future steps

do more research, look into primary literature and find more tools that can be used.