My turn to do lab meeting

I've been so absorbed in my Useful Genetics course that I've let our weekly lab meetings lapse over the last few months.  But I've set up a new schedule and today it's my turn to present.  Of course I haven't done any experiments lately, but I've done one tiny analysis and I'll also talk about plans for the CIHR proposal. The tiny analysis was the first step in addressing a question I've been wondering about for a while now- the phylogenetic distribution of the rec2/comEC gene.  In H. influenzae the  Rec2 protein sits in the inner membrane and translocates a single strand of DNA from the periplasm to the cytoplasm.  Its Bacillus subtilis homolog ComEC does the same thing at the one cytoplasmic membrane.  Homologs of these proteins are present in all known competent species, and the appropt=riate experiments have been done they have the same DNA-translocation function, are competence-regulated, and do not have any other obvious function in the cell.  This distinguishes them from all the other proteins consistently required for DNA uptake, which are members of the type 4 pilus complex and known to also function in other pilus-associated processes. Thus the phylogenetic distribution of rec2/comEC might be expected to reflect the phylogenetic distribution of competence.  But as far as I know nobody has examined this. Before I describe what I found, I should bring up the distribution of another competence-induced gene, dprA.  I've w...
Source: RRResearch - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Source Type: blogs