Category:Team Blue A 2019

In Δsod Thermus thermophilus mutants, HPLC is used to observe a statistically significant drop in reduced bacillthiol pools (BSH), despite the total BSH (oxidized and reduced) concentrations remaining the same. Sod (superoxide dismutase) is a well-characterized antioxidant enzyme and its deletion, combined with the difference in reduced BSH levels, suggests Sod plays a role in BSH oxidation.

The authors generated a mutant strain of Borrelia burgdorferi with the dksA gene knocked out. Using thin-layer chromatography, they measured the levels of (p)ppGpp produced by both wild-type and ΔdksA mutants under starvation conditions (figure 7A). When these results were quantified and normalized to levels of (p)ppGpp+GTP, the authors found that the ΔdksA mutant produced significantly higher levels of (p)ppGpp than wild-type (figure 7B). Reinsertion of the dksA gene through a plasmid vector containing the dksA ORF (pDksA) restored production levels of (p)ppGpp comparable to that of the wild-type strain. This indicates that the dksA gene plays a role in regulation of guanosine pentaphosphate metabolism.

In Figure 2G, there is a significant absence of apoB in dennd5b -/- mice, a protein required for enterocyte absorption of triglycerides (lipids), compared to dennd5b+/+ mice.