The results of this experiment suggest that Twi2 and its associated proteins play a role in the DNA damage repair pathway. With further studies, such as gene knockout, we could determine its specific role in recruiting proteins for DNA repair.
Primer design was a little tricky since Twi2 is one large exon. There were a lot of similarities in the Tetrahymena genome of where the primers could have annealed so it was critical we picked a good set that would anneal correctly.
Definitely, if the cells would have been incubated in Hydroxyurea for too long, DNA double strand breaks would have occurred causing the cell to die, meaning we would have not had viable damaged DNA samples for our final PCR and gel and wouldn’t have seen results.
curesymposium.org 
Did your group encounter any problems during the experiment?
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We did have to redo the final gel due to contamination present in our PCRs, but the redo gel yielded the expected results.
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How does your research help us understand more about the diseases that are caused by DNA damage?
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The results of this experiment suggest that Twi2 and its associated proteins play a role in the DNA damage repair pathway. With further studies, such as gene knockout, we could determine its specific role in recruiting proteins for DNA repair.
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We also found a close human homolog when researching the gene making it a more interesting candidate for disease research in the future.
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What was the hardest part of the research?
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Primer design was a little tricky since Twi2 is one large exon. There were a lot of similarities in the Tetrahymena genome of where the primers could have annealed so it was critical we picked a good set that would anneal correctly.
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Are there any possible risks in inducing DNA damage that could have intense negative effects?
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Definitely, if the cells would have been incubated in Hydroxyurea for too long, DNA double strand breaks would have occurred causing the cell to die, meaning we would have not had viable damaged DNA samples for our final PCR and gel and wouldn’t have seen results.
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