That is a great question, and it very much could be the case that Dychrom is involved in single stranded DNA breaks as compared to double stranded DNA breaks. However, I believe a key component is the self-induced DNA damage and subsequent repair pathway activated during the cells’ conjugation. Which could have many variables regulating this behavior, one perhaps being Dychrom expression.
Unfortunately, I think the biggest limitation was reduced lab time given the pandemic, which resulting in not having time to run this experiment in duplicate / triplicate.
I’m not sure. I failed to mention this in my presentation, but Dychrom does not have any homologs in any other studied eukaryotes. suggesting unique functionality within tetrahymina.
Great video Brian! Really curious if you have any ideas about what causes different damage response mechanisms to engage in different contexts? (The nuance in response you spoke about toward the end of the video.) Thanks so much!
Different DNA damage such as single stranded breaks, double stranded breaks, base dimerization endo or exo, will each induce different DNA repair mechanisms. However, I was suggesting that conjugation induced DNA repair, are regulated by upstream signaling molecules. Which would indicate that without “normal’ activation of this repair pathway, the Dychrom gene is not activated as the required upstream signal molecule is not expressed.
Hello Brian, great presentation! Since the experiment didn’t meet your expected results, what future experiment would you perform if you were to continue your research?
Do you think dychrome only expresses with certain types of DNA damage based off of this?
That is a great question, and it very much could be the case that Dychrom is involved in single stranded DNA breaks as compared to double stranded DNA breaks. However, I believe a key component is the self-induced DNA damage and subsequent repair pathway activated during the cells’ conjugation. Which could have many variables regulating this behavior, one perhaps being Dychrom expression.
Hey Brian! I was wondering what some of the limitations you encountered were?
Unfortunately, I think the biggest limitation was reduced lab time given the pandemic, which resulting in not having time to run this experiment in duplicate / triplicate.
The biggest limitation was reduced lab time given the pandemic, resulting in inability to run experiments in duplicate/triplicate.
Great job Brian! Do you think it would be possible that other other eukaryotes use dychrome repair in normal cellular DNA damage?
I’m not sure. I failed to mention this in my presentation, but Dychrom does not have any homologs in any other studied eukaryotes. suggesting unique functionality within tetrahymina.
Great video Brian! Really curious if you have any ideas about what causes different damage response mechanisms to engage in different contexts? (The nuance in response you spoke about toward the end of the video.) Thanks so much!
Different DNA damage such as single stranded breaks, double stranded breaks, base dimerization endo or exo, will each induce different DNA repair mechanisms. However, I was suggesting that conjugation induced DNA repair, are regulated by upstream signaling molecules. Which would indicate that without “normal’ activation of this repair pathway, the Dychrom gene is not activated as the required upstream signal molecule is not expressed.
Hello Brian, great presentation! Since the experiment didn’t meet your expected results, what future experiment would you perform if you were to continue your research?
I would love to look at expression profiles and life cycles of T. thermophila with Dychrom knocked out!