Lab #14: Poster Presentation and Submitting the Abstract – 4/26/19

Objective/Rationale

The main goal for this weeks lab was to prepare for our poster presentations at the cure symposium next week by writing our abstracts and adding last-minute corrections to our posters before they are sent for printing. We want to be as ready as possible for symposium so it is important for us to make sure that the posters are perfect. We will also be presenting our posters next week in lab so we need to be ready for that as well.

Methods

Working in our lab groups, we used a template given to us by our instructor so that we would be able to write an abstract appropriate for symposium. Each group made sure to include information relevant to each section of the poster so that the abstract was basically a spark notes version of the poster.

Results

Here is a copy of our finalized abstract:

Currently, there is very little information on soil ciliates because they do not directly impact humans and are difficult to culture. This study was conducted to test specific DNA extraction protocols, obtain metadata from trees on Baylor’s campus, and to compare the sequenced DNA of soil ciliates to other sequenced genomes. Various soil metadata were obtained such as pH, percent water content, soil texture, location of the tree, breast height diameter of the tree, and tree species. Ciliates were cultured from the soil in order to extract the DNA and have it sequenced. A chelex extraction protocol was used to isolate the DNA from the ciliate culture. Nanodrop and gel were used to quantify DNA concentration. PCR was used to amplify the 18S V4 ribosomal region and visualized using a DNA gel. The soil had a water percent content of 26.1%, pH of 6.5, texture classified as silt loam, BHD of 43 cm, location within Baylor campus, and the species of the tree was determined to be Pinus taeda. The concentration of the DNA was 112 ng/ul. PCR resulted in bands appearing in the DNA gel. This project resulted in successful eukaryotic DNA isolation. With positive PCR results and the appearance of banding in the gel, these findings will contribute to the minimal literature on soil ciliates.

The title of our abstract is: Extraction of Soil Ciliate DNA and Amplification with PCR Primers

Metadata information

Final pster draft

Conclusion

I think that the template was very helpful, our abstract flows very nicely and delivers the information concisely, as an abstract should.  We also had a lot of very useful help from our instructors which was superrrrr great. I feel like we are prepared enough to present next week.

Future Goals

My main goal is to focus heavily on preparing for the presentation next week. I hope that it goes well.