Chemistry Systematic Optimization of Parameters of Compucell 3D For Modeling Autophagic Bodies
Garrett Bailey Steven Backues, faculty mentor Autophagy is the process in which cells uptake cellular material and recycle it under starvation conditions, and understanding it is important for human health. Visualizing autophagic bodies by electron microscopy is an important part of this research, but is limited because it only gives flat 2D images. This can lead to slices of bodies with misleading sizes, and even exclude whole bodies. 3D modeling bypasses this as it can visualize bodies as wholes, allowing more accurate interpretation of electron microscope images. We are optimizing the parameters of the modeling program Compucell 3D to mimic the natural configuration of autophagic bodies within the cell. Poster / Live Session 1 / 10:00 a.m.
Investigating the Binding Interaction of UHRF1 PHD D334A and UHRF2 PHD D363N to H3K9me3 Kaitlyn Bricker Brittany Albaugh, faculty mentor Ubiquitin-like, containing PHD and RING finger domains protein 1 and 2 (UHRF1 and UHRF2) are epigenetic histone reader proteins. D334 of UHRF1 and D363 UHRF2 within the PHD is proposed to ionically interact with R2 of H3. To test this possibility, we created UHRF1 PHD D334A and UHRF2 PHD D363N mutants by mutagenesis and analyzed their impacts on the binding of H3 peptides by fluorescence polarization. We found that changing the negatively charged amino acids with neutral amino acids ceased the ability for the reader proteins to bind, furthering our understanding of these reader proteins and their connection to cancer. Poster / Live Session 1 / 9:40 a.m.
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