Using Budding Yeast to Quantitate the Rate of Autophagy
Department
Biological Sciences
Major
Biological Sciences with a minor in Chemistry
Research Advisor
Shannon, Katie
Barua, Dipak
Advisor's Department
Biological Sciences
Second Advisor's Department
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Funding Source
The Center for Statistical and Computational Modeling of Biological Complexity Collaborative Research Grant
Abstract
Autophagy is a homeostatic process that functions in eliminating unwanted protein, damaged organelles, and intracellular microbial pathogens. Previous research has shown the importance of autophagy in maintaining physiological functions as well as its implications in severe human diseases. These implications have revealed an importance for quantitative measuring of autophagy. Rapamycin is a drug that induces autophagy through the inhibition of mTOR, a protein kinase that regulates cell growth and metabolism. The inhibition of mTOR mimics cellular starvation, causing cellular stress and thereby inducing autophagy. In budding yeast cells, autophagy causes an influx of proteins into the vacuole where they are then degraded. Measuring the degradation of these proteins is an accurate method to monitor and quantify autophagic activity. In this study, cells expressing Pgk1-GFP as a marker of autophagy were treated with various concentration of rapamycin. Imaging was performed after six hours of treatment with the various rapamycin concentrations. After data collection, image-processing software was used to quantitate fluorescence intensity of Pgk1-GFP in the yeast vacuole. This data will be used to create a computational model of autophagy induced by rapamycin.
Biography
Kayln is a senior majoring in Biological Sciences with a minor in Chemistry. She has been working in Katie Shannon’s cytokinesis lab since June of 2015 and this represents her first project. She is currently president of Scrubs and a member of Phi Sigma Biological Honors Society. She will be graduating from S&T this December with plans to begin medical school in the fall of 2017.
Research Category
Research Proposals
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Document Type
Poster
Location
Upper Atrium/Hallway
Presentation Date
11 Apr 2016, 9:00 am - 11:45 am
Using Budding Yeast to Quantitate the Rate of Autophagy
Upper Atrium/Hallway
Autophagy is a homeostatic process that functions in eliminating unwanted protein, damaged organelles, and intracellular microbial pathogens. Previous research has shown the importance of autophagy in maintaining physiological functions as well as its implications in severe human diseases. These implications have revealed an importance for quantitative measuring of autophagy. Rapamycin is a drug that induces autophagy through the inhibition of mTOR, a protein kinase that regulates cell growth and metabolism. The inhibition of mTOR mimics cellular starvation, causing cellular stress and thereby inducing autophagy. In budding yeast cells, autophagy causes an influx of proteins into the vacuole where they are then degraded. Measuring the degradation of these proteins is an accurate method to monitor and quantify autophagic activity. In this study, cells expressing Pgk1-GFP as a marker of autophagy were treated with various concentration of rapamycin. Imaging was performed after six hours of treatment with the various rapamycin concentrations. After data collection, image-processing software was used to quantitate fluorescence intensity of Pgk1-GFP in the yeast vacuole. This data will be used to create a computational model of autophagy induced by rapamycin.
Comments
Joint Project with Md Shahinuzzaman