TW
Tyra Wooster
  • Biology
  • Class of 2020
  • Hartford, ME

Mukwonago student presents research at seventh annual Celebration of Scholars event

2017 May 2

Carthage College held the seventh annual Celebration of Scholars event on Friday, April 28, 2017. Celebration of Scholars is a poster exhibition that features original research, scholarship, and creative work completed by Carthage students.

Tyra Wooster of Mukwonago presented "The Hunt to Characterize Gordonia Infecting Bacteriophage JiFall16" at the event.

This is the project's abstract:

"A bacteriophage is a virus that infects a specific bacterial host. Gordonia phage JiFall16 was one of almost 80 different phages isolated in the BIO1110 course, through techniques of spot testing, purification by streaking and plaque assay, amplification by lysate harvest, lysate titer, electron microscopy, DNA extraction, and genome analysis by restriction digest. During isolation, the plaques that formed ranged in size from one centimeter to pinpoint, all of which had a clear appearance leading us to conclude that the phage is lytic. JiFall16 DNA was later sent for sequencing, and the genome length is 67,470 base pairs. Characterization of JiFall16 was possible by annotating its genome using the program DNAmaster as well as other sources such as GeneMark-Gordonia output, Glimmer, HHpred, BLASTp , and Phamerator. Our annotations consisted of the decision of the start and stop sites of each gene, determining the amount of coding potential each gene includes based on the GeneMark-Gordonia coding potential map, recording the gaps or overlaps between each gene in its genome, analyzing the alignment of the encoded amino acid sequences, and determining what possible proteins could be encoded from each gene. Gordonia terrae infecting bacteriophages are not yet well known; therefore, through our research we are attempting to find out more about these viruses through further bioinformatic and laboratory characterization."