Could you please clarify the purpose of the experiment? You mentioned, “The main question in this research is whether exonuclease/helicase was also found in lytic phages …”
Hi Heather! The reason I took my research in the direction that I did is because I noticed that the other phages including genes in pham 67020 (the pham that gene 46 is part of) were exclusively temperate. This led me to investigate whether this finding was just coincidence, or whether this exonuclease/helicase protein served some characteristic function to specifically temperate phages. Upon finding an exonuclease/helicase protein of a different pham found only in lytic phages, I then wanted to see if there was any conservation between the two amino acid sequences or if they were completely different. I hope that clarifies things!
Hi Lyss! For this class, we were all assigned a specific region of the genome to annotate, and gene 46 happened to fall into my designated region. Out of all of the genes that I annotated and found functions for, I thought that the dual-function exonuclease/helicase protein was interesting, and I wanted to do more research on how this protein is beneficial to phages. Addressing the second part of your question, clusters are how phages are categorized. Phages in the same subcluster share 70% of their genome, which means that all P1 cluster phages are 70% similar genetically. Members of the P1 cluster are temperate and infect Mycobacterium.
Hi Zach! The presence of a conserved domain between the two genes I analyzed illustrates that there is an amino acid region in potentially all exonuclease/helicase proteins in phage that are essential to protein function.
Hi Emily! I think it would be interesting to conduct an experiment replacing the lytic exonuclease/helicase protein with the temperate protein and vice versa and monitoring recombination frequency. This experiment would show how the two proteins are similar/different in their role in recombination.
Could you please clarify the purpose of the experiment? You mentioned, “The main question in this research is whether exonuclease/helicase was also found in lytic phages …”
Hi Heather! The reason I took my research in the direction that I did is because I noticed that the other phages including genes in pham 67020 (the pham that gene 46 is part of) were exclusively temperate. This led me to investigate whether this finding was just coincidence, or whether this exonuclease/helicase protein served some characteristic function to specifically temperate phages. Upon finding an exonuclease/helicase protein of a different pham found only in lytic phages, I then wanted to see if there was any conservation between the two amino acid sequences or if they were completely different. I hope that clarifies things!
Why was this gene juniormint gene 46 chosen specifically to study, and what is the p1 cluster phage?
Also I just saw you do the keynote you both did so good!
Thank you so much!!
Hi Lyss! For this class, we were all assigned a specific region of the genome to annotate, and gene 46 happened to fall into my designated region. Out of all of the genes that I annotated and found functions for, I thought that the dual-function exonuclease/helicase protein was interesting, and I wanted to do more research on how this protein is beneficial to phages. Addressing the second part of your question, clusters are how phages are categorized. Phages in the same subcluster share 70% of their genome, which means that all P1 cluster phages are 70% similar genetically. Members of the P1 cluster are temperate and infect Mycobacterium.
Is junior mint lytic or lysogenic phage
Hi Nishanth! Juniormint is a temperate phage, which means it can undergo the lytic or lysogenic lifecycle.
What are the implications of finding this conserved domain that you are most excited about in the context of bacteriophage research more broadly?
Hi Zach! The presence of a conserved domain between the two genes I analyzed illustrates that there is an amino acid region in potentially all exonuclease/helicase proteins in phage that are essential to protein function.
What future directions do you see for your particular research?
Hi Emily! I think it would be interesting to conduct an experiment replacing the lytic exonuclease/helicase protein with the temperate protein and vice versa and monitoring recombination frequency. This experiment would show how the two proteins are similar/different in their role in recombination.