Files

Download

Download Full Text (9.0 MB)

Description

Schmidtea mediterranea, the freshwater planarian, possesses protonephridia, which are an organized network of branched tubules that function in waste filtration and water regulation. On a cellular and molecular level, these structures show considerable homology to the human kidney making planarians a useful model system for exploring human excretory biology and disease (Scimone, 2011 and Vu, 2015). Additionally, the planarian genome contains many flatworm-specific protonephridia genes essential for survival, making them potential drug targets for parasitic worm infections of humans. We set out to validate the expression of protonephridia genes identified by Drop-seq, a single-cell RNA sequencing technique that identified the transcriptomes for every cell type in S. mediterranea (Fincher et al., 2018). To accomplish this, we mapped gene expression using colorimetric and fluorescence in situ hybridization and characterized gene functionality via RNA interference screening (RNAi).

Advisor

Dr. Ryan King, Biology

Publication Date

2022

Keywords

biology, gene expression, RNA interference screening

Functional Analysis of Protonephridia Genes Identified by Drop-Seq
COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.