Salutations everyone. It has come to my attention that I have
forgotten to introduce my work and my background in my first post. Due to the
exciting and educational experiences I have had in lab this summer, it must
have slipped my mind. Therefore I have introduced myself and explained my
research below.
My name is Ruben Galindo and I am a rising senior majoring
in Biochemistry. At my home institution of UCLA, I work in the lab of Dr. Carla
Koehler researching the import pathway of Pink1 into mitochondria due to its
link to Parkinson’s. During the summer of 2015 I am working at the University
of California San Francisco in the lab of Dr. Robert Stroud through the Amgen
funded, summer research training program (SRTP). Under the guidance of Dr. Alex
Vecchio, I am determining the feasibility and stability of recombinantly
expressed human tight junction proteins using HEK cells.
A brief introduction about tight junctions is
that they are cell structures, comprised of various proteins, found in
epithelial tissue that regulate paracellular transport and cell-cell adhesion.
Due to the importance of TJ’s in epithelial tissue function, dysregulation in
their formation causes deafness, cancer, food borne illness and renal disorders.
The common method of expressing human proteins uses insect cells because of
their easy and established usage. The problem with this system is that insect
cells are not natural hosts of human proteins, and as a result are unable to
express various stable proteins. Therefore, my research focuses on determining
how well human embryonic kidney cells express various human TJ proteins. Due to the nature of my research, I work with
insect cells a lot, as well as perform various types of protein purification
using affinity and size exclusion chromatography. So far I have met many
people, learned many things and had lots of fun. |
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A Few Human Tight Junction Proteins
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Size Exclusion Chromatography Instrument Used For
Purification
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