October 18, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Jeff McFarlane, science teacher at
J.C. Harmon High School,
(913) 627-7096
Students at J.C Harmon High School have determined the DNA sequence for a gene, GAPC (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase), from the Helianthus annuus plant (the common sunflower). This gene has never been sequenced before in this species.
This work was completed during a Biotechnology 2 course, which is a college course given through Kansas City Kansas Community College. The findings were recently published on GenBank, a genetic database hosted by the National Library of Medicine through the National Institutes of Health. The web links to the publication are:
Thirteen students were involved in the project, three of whom are seniors this year at Harmon. The work was made possible by a grant from PREP-KC.
"This group of students worked so well as a team," said Jeff McFarlane, science teacher at J.C. Harmon High School. "Their dedication within our biotechnology program enabled them to apply a level of science skill not often found in high school students. The J.C. Harmon science staff is very proud of their accomplishment."
Students had to follow a number of steps to produce this sequence and make it available to the public. First, sunflower plants were grown to provide a source of DNA. A DNA extraction had to be made by grinding leaves from the sunflower plant and running the material through a number of centrifugation and separation stages. A technique called PCR (polymerase chain reaction) was then done to isolate and copy the region that contained the gene that was sequenced.
Electrophoresis was then done to see that the DNA was properly copied. A ligation reaction was used to paste the gene region into a larger piece of plasmid DNA. The gene was then inserted into an E. coli bacterial culture and grown so that many copies of the gene would be produced for sequencing. This is called transformation. The E. coli then went through a plasmid purification step that ensures the gene has been grown. The gene was then mixed with the sequencing chemicals and sent to the Joint Genome Institute at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where the sequencing reaction was run. Once the raw sequence was complete, students used their laptops to analyze the data from the 96 different sequencing reactions that they ran to determine the final sequence, correct errors and identify the parts of the gene.
With this new information, scientists can better understand how the taxonomy of the sunflower relates to other plants through the GAPC gene. This information might also be used by other scientists working on the sunflower genome as a way to check the accuracy of their work.
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