Professor, Columbus State University, GA
My RNA-Seq experiment looks at mRNA transcript abundance in yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, grown in rich medium with and without added 1 mM copper sulfate. I have previously isolated a large number of yeast mutants that produce a brown pigment in the presence of copper sulfate, and I want to understand better the cellular context of this interesting phenotype in terms of gene expression. Copper is important to organisms both as an essential micronutrient and a cofactor in many enzymatic reactions and as a toxicant when present in moderate or high concentrations. Therefore, eukaryotes have evolved highly conserved pathways of copper transport into and within cells in order to ensure optimal levels of available copper. Yeast cells share many of these genes and pathways with other eukaryotes and are highly amenable to genetic and molecular analyses of copper metabolism. Furthermore, unlike most other eukaryotes, many strains of yeast are remarkably resistant to copper and are able to grow well in the presence of copper at concentrations as high as 5 mM. I want to characterize the transcriptome of yeast grown at a high concentration of copper in order to determine which genes might be involved in achieving such remarkable resistance to copper.
Materials are under development.
Materials are under development.
