My name is Jose Luis Orozco. I am going to be a fourth year
student studying Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at UCLA. This
summer I am continuing my research in the lab of Dr. Peter Tontonoz. Our lab
focuses on lipid metabolism, lipid-responsive transcription factors and their
targets. My graduate student mentor and I are currently working on a project
focused on cholesterol transport.
We have identified a gene that is expressed by a transcription
factor that is responsive to excess cholesterol. We believe that the protein
corresponding to this gene may elucidate how cholesterol moves within the cell.
From the protein’s architecture three types of domains have been identified. We
have not yet determined where the protein co-localizes to, but we suspect one
domain to be a lipid binding domain.This leads us to hypothesize that this
protein acts a transporter for cholesterol.
We are currently working on proving that the lipophilic domain
binds cholesterol. In order to do this we must clone the domain into a virus
and infect cells to make our protein. Here is a gel of the elutions used for
protein purification with the last well being the concentrated pure protein of
interest.
We have also been working on cloning truncations of the protein
and control domains into plasmids for transfection to eventually prove the
specificity of our domains more rigorously through confocal microscopy. Here is
a photo of my bacteria being plated, a typical step in the cloning process.
Here is a cool picture I took while out for lunch. It was the
first time I’ve had Chee
rwine since last summer when a friend from North Carolina introduced me to it in Texas.
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