Good Results

The last month at the laboratory has given me good news. One of the set of primers that was designed to amplify a fragment of the lux gene worked astonishingly. With a proper PCR we managed to amplify the luxH section of the lux gene. The other set of primers were designed to amplify the luxF section of the lux gene. This was not done effectively yet. The cause of this problem is that luxH and luxF sections of the lux gene are discriminatory (the are present in a specific genre of luminescent bacteria). LuxF is present in Photobacterium and luxH is present in Vibrio species. The grad student that is counseling me thinks he has no photobacterium species in the islands collection and that CAN be a reasong for the “malfunctions” with the luxF primers. Mi next steps are to order a POSITIVE luxF bacteria collection (Photobacterium phosphoreum) in order to optimize the primers and see if they work properly. Now my next objectives are to design a set of primers for the luxA and luxB areas (genes responsible for the production of luciferase) in order to amplify these also.

I would say that my progress for technical objectives is at 4. The progress of designing many sets of primers (many successfully) and amplifiying the genes continuously is the proof of it. Ive also managed to set a few conclusions by myself and these are going to be the next objectives for my investigation.