37th Annual Student Research Conference
The role of phosphorylation of ZIPT-7.1 on Caenorhabditis elegans sperm maturation.
Trace N. Ackley
Dr. Stephanie Maiden, Faculty Mentor
Sperm maturation is important for the continuation of many species. A large influx of zinc ions into the spermatids is essential for this maturation. Our lab uses the Caenorhabditis elegans ZIPT-7.1 zinc transporter as a model to understand this process. The present project focuses on how ZIPT-7.1 may be activated via phosphorylation. We first determined the possible phosphorylation sites by plugging the protein sequence into an online program, which gave the mathematical probability of which amino acids may be phosphorylated. Sequences of orthologous proteins were then compared to C. elegans through a multiple sequence alignment. The amino acids with the highest probability of phosphorylation and high conservation between orthologs were chosen for targeted gene editing. We will mutate these amino acids via CRISPR-Cas9 and test the sperm maturation. If the mutated sperm do not mature, then ZIPT-7.1 may be regulated at these possible phosphorylation sites.
Keywords: Sperm maturation, Zinc transport
Topic(s):Biology
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Session: 209-2
Location: MG 1096
Time: 10:45