Students in Molecular Biology are carrying out experimental analyses of genes and their proteins with special emphasis on methodologies used to study recombinant DNA and gene cloning. The instrumentation purchased through this award is being used for the electrophoresis procedures which chemically separate and identify proteins and DNA fragments. The major equipment items include vertical and horizontal slab gel electrophoresis units and various supportive instrumentation -- a microcentrifuge, scanning densitometer, constant temperature incubator, shaker bath, analytical balance, and pH meter. The student experiments are being developed around a model gene-protein system in Bacillus, a spore-forming group of bacteria in which heat- resistant spores are produced that contain sizeable quantities of small, acid-soluble proteins (SASP). Such proteins play important, but not yet fully understood, roles in spore germination. Students are isolating and identifying SASPs, and are determining the number of genes involved in the coding their production.
