Introduction:
a) Proteomics is the study of proteins. The central dogma of biology is DNA --> RNA --> protein. Thus, by studying proteins, scientists can see which genes are expressed in a cell and which aren't. For example, skin cells may express genes that code for proteins that make up one's skin color, while blood cells may express more genes that code for oxygen absorbing proteins. Proteomics can prove useful for studying evolutionary relationships between species. For example, if two species have similar protein expression, it is likely that they are closely related. Muscle cells contain a lot of protein, specifically proteins actin and myosin. Thus, we will be using muscle cells in our proteomics lab.
b) The purpose of this lab is to analyze the protein of different fish species to see how closely related the fish are to each other.
c) We will be utilizing many techniques in this lab. First, we will grind up the fish muscle and denature the proteins via a hot water bath. This leaves the protein exposed and stretched out so that they can be more easily analyzed. We will run the protein samples on a gel and then compare the results. Fish with similar banding patterns are closely related in the evolutionary tree and fish with very different banding patterns are more distantly related.
d) I do not know which kinds of fish we will be comparing in this experiment, so I cannot predict which will be closely related. However, I predict that the lab will go well and gel electrophoresis will work.
