Page 19 - Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Proceedings 2017-18

School of Science
Division of Life Science

Construction of a Signal Transduction Pathway Reporter Indicator for Monitoring Signaling Strength

Supervisor: CHOW King Lau / LIFS
Student: ENGINEER Vaspan Darius / BCB Course: UROP1100, Spring

The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) related DBL-1 pathway in Caenorhabditis elegans is known to play a
significant role towards size and growth regulation. Current methods of measuring the signalling strength of this
pathway are limited to worm size measurement, however, these may in some cases be unreliable as size variations tend
to be minute. As a result, this project aims at creating a reporter that can indicate the signalling strength of the DBL-1
pathway more efficiently using previously identified partners of the pathway. I attempted to investigate the promoter
regions of two genes (ZK1320.3 and D1014.5) in order to observe their viability and effectiveness as reporters. Thus far
purified samples of the suspected promoter regions for both genes have been obtained, but the project is still in
progress and there is much that needs to be done.

Analysis of Surface Delivery of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors

Supervisor: GUO Yusong / LIFS
Student: LAM Yat Sum Brisson / BIOT Course: UROP1100, Fall

Protein trafficking is a highly coordinated and complex process that is essential in all living organisms. After being
synthesized in the cytoplasm, the protein has to travel through several stops, including the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER)
and the Golgi Apparatus, before proceeding to the plasma membrane. This project will utilize the Retention Using
Selective Hooks (RUSH) system, a retentive hook system that controls the release of proteins in ER, to study the
mechanisms in the transportation the protein Frizzled 6 (Fzd6), a protein playing a role in Plane Cell Polarity (PCP). We
will first generate a mCherry-RUSH-Fzd6 construct, which contains the mCherry florescence protein, RUSH system, and
Fzd6 protein. We will then be transfecting the construct into COS7 cells and HeLa cells and use a florescence microscope
to analyse its localization.

Molecular mechanisms that regulate export of a nerve growth factor receptor, p75, out of the trans Golgi network

Supervisor: GUO Yusong / LIFS
Student: MALKI Yasine / BCB Course: UROP1100, Fall

Epithelial cells maintain a polarized organization – sorting of cargo protein to apical or basolateral membrane domain for
specialized physiological function, this distribution and trans-Golgi trafficking of protein relies upon sorting signals, which
tend to be short motifs and post translational modification. The human neurotrophin transmembrane receptor p75 is a
crucial component in neuron survival and functioning, and is known to be dependent on O-glycosylation (particularly in
residue site 168-218) for apical membrane transport. Previous studies also establish that the formation of higher-level
structures like dimerization and clusters also affect transport directionality. The objective of this experiment was to
identify transport characteristics in HeLa cells after deletion of heavily O-glycosylated residue site 193-218 and attempt
molecular cloning of p75-GFP for further experimentation.

Control of Cell Number in the Brain

Supervisor: HERRUP Karl / LIFS Co-Supervisor: HUNG Siu Chun / LIFS
Student: CHAN Si Kei / BICH Course: UROP1100, Summer
KONG Deyue / BCB UROP1100, Summer

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