School of Science Division of Life Science 21 Novel Optogenetic Imaging for Comprehensive Mapping of Neural Activity Supervisor: HIRANO Yukinori / LIFS Student: WO Hui Cheuk / BIBU Course: UROP 1100, Summer Based on prior observations that acute stress induces claustrophobic behaviours via AstA neurons in Drosophila melanogaster, our team constructed three plasmids (#2353 pFastbac-Act5Cp-AstAR1-2FLAG, #2356 pFastbac-Act5Cp-AstAR2-2FLAG, and #2357 pFastbac-Act5Cp-AstCR1-2FLAG) to investigate protein interactions with Ast receptors expressed in S2 cells. Challenges during ligation of the desired plasmids delayed this process. The methodology for plasmid construction and preliminary results are presented alongside supporting figures. Future work will focus on transfection of S2 cells, followed by coimmunoprecipitation and Western blot analysis to characterize the interactome of AstAR1-2FLAG-2HA, AstAR2-2FLAG-2HA, and AstCR1-2FLAG-2HA proteins. This study aims to advance the understanding of stress-induced mechanisms and protein interactions in the Ast signaling pathway. Investigating Transcription Elongation Dynamics at a Single-Molecule Level Supervisor: ISHIBASHI Toyotaka / LIFS Student: TJUA Owen / BCB Course: UROP 1000, Summer Nucleosomes are widely known as the fundamental unit of DNA packaging in eukaryotic cells, but they show promising antimicrobial mechanisms similar or related to neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). The aim of this project is to examine the effect of various doses of nucleosome antimicrobial assays on E. coli in vitro. Solutions of E. coli were mixed with different amounts of the nucleosome, and cultured on an LB agar plate, the growth was then observed using an imaging machine. The nucleosome assays did not significantly affect the growth of bacteria. These findings suggest that further investigation of the antimicrobial activity of nucleosomes is needed, or that the concentrations that were tested were insufficient for the nucleosomes to have a significant effect. Chinese Herbal Medicine for General Health Supervisor: LIANG Chun / LIFS Student: CHAN Wan Fung / BCB Course: UROP 1000, Summer This study investigated how extracts of Cistanche from three sources (RCR1, RCR2, RCR3) influence glucose uptake and GLP-1r expression in HepG2 cells which has relevant to diabetes research. A glucose uptake assay measured quantitative changes in HepG2 cell glucose handling following Cistanche treatment and Western blotting evaluated GLP-1r regulation. The results showed that Cistanche restored the ability of HepG2 cells to recognize insulin via their receptors because glucose uptake after treatment matched those of the noninsulin resistance and higher than the IR control group thus improving glucose uptake efficiency. These findings highlight the potential role of Cistanche in diabetic liver disease and encourage further investigation of its therapeutic potential in diabetes management.
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