Microarray Analysis Involving the Comparison of Wildtype and Mutant (ZMS1Δ) strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract:

   The purpose of this study was to investigate yeast genes functionally related to ZWF1 using microarray technology. ZWF1 encodes for glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase which helps battle the effects of oxidative stress. ZMS1 is part of a pathway that helps suppress ZWF1 mutations. The goal of the experiment was to look at the differences in the expression profile between ΔZMS1 and wild-type ZMS1 using microarray analysis. It was hypothesized that the levels of gene expression for the ΔZMS1 mutant would be lower than in the wild-type. A total RNA isolation was performed on bakers yeast. cDNA was made and hybridized to a microarray slide which was then scanned.  ΔZMS1 was labeled with Cy-3(green) and the wild-type was labeled with Cy-5(red).  Using Scanalyze and Magic tool analysis was performed on the slide. After a 1.2% agarose gel electrophoresis was run the wild-type sample had pure RNA while the mutant sample had a mix of DNA and RNA. Both samples had good nucleic acid purity. After scanning, slide (13697727) did not return any useful results so slide 104 from fall 2004 was used for further analysis. After working with the computer analysis tools it was determined that the data was too inconsistent to draw any conclusion about the hypothesis.

Sierra Delrue: delruesl@jmu.edu

Carolyn Ichter: ichtercd@jmu.edu

Jonathan Lucyshyn: lucyshjx@jmu.edu