Discussion:
The goal of the experiment was to see what genes are regulated by ZMS1 and ZMS2. This study focused on ZMS2. This experiment was conducted to further the understanding of how ZMS1 and ZMS2 combat the oxidative stress pathway. The purity and quality of the RNA samples was high, the wild-type had a ratio of 2.18 and ZMS2 of 2.26. From previous experiments it has been calculated that a ratio of 1.8 and below has possible DNA contamination. The reason the experiment switched to studying ZMS2 was caused by possible errors due to improper mixes in the wash solutions for the microarray. The experiment could be improved next time by possibly changing the protocol to allow individual groups to mix their own solutions. Students each individually creating the solutions would ensure that a single error would lead to across the board failure as seen in this semester’s slides.
Based on the data from the microarray project we selected the four most highly down regulated genes that were that are normally up regulated by ZMS2. After analysis of these genes it was found that there was not a specific conserved sequence for this set of genes that are not typically conserved in all genes. As mentioned before the consensus sequences have similar sites that could possibly bind to the transcription factors and a conserved TATA box. However, in this experiment there were several other promising genes that could have been examined and a consequence sequence could be found for ZMS2. We can not conclude that there is or is not a conserved sequence to which ZMS2 binds, further analysis of other downregulated gene’s promoter regions is necessary.