Angela Zhang
Pronouns: She/Her
Research Mentor(s): Rachel Niederer
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Biological Chemistry / Medicine
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 5 (2:40pm – 3:30pm)
Authors:
Abstract
Have you ever wondered how people can have different features about them, even when related? Some changes we can describe as hidden genes are known as recessive genes in genetic sequencing, but what about the others that are completely different? Why is it that one person in the family has a specific difference like diseases, disabilities, or even features? Often, these can be explained by mutations in the genes. Genes are contained in DNA, Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid, which stays in the nucleus. However, many disease-associated mutations are actually found in non-coding portions of the genome. So you might wonder, how do mutations in non-coding sequences cause disease? In some cases this is because the corresponding messenger RNA, Ribonucleic Acid, and contains mutations in important regulatory features. These mutations can happen to anyone. No one is safe from this happening, but with research, we are able to discover and prevent the effect of the mutations. Our lab aims to uncover regulatory features in non-coding regions of mRNA. For this project, we cloned 5′-UTRs into luciferase reporters to measure protein output. We then performed mutagenesis to identify any important regulatory features within this noncoding region. We will use these insights to build models that predict protein output from RNA sequence alone and will enable us to design RNA therapeutics that precisely target expression in different tissues and cell types.
