Summer research kicked-off this
week for both Savannah and I, as we began to work on new experiments. I focused
on two projects this week: analyzing data that Abby took during the summer of
2014, and doing preliminary reading on nucleosome core particles (NCPs). I will
be working on both projects throughout the summer.
The
data Abby took in 2014 is very similar to the data I analyzed last summer,
except there was ion competition between a monovalent and a trivalent cation
charge neutralizing a hexagonal array of DNA (as opposed to divalent and
trivalent). Abby had already computed the average concentrations of each
element in the samples, and I was just compiling the data into graphs (see
below). Problems with this such “raw analysis” of the data is evident though:
the total cation-to-anion charge ratio easily exceeds one. This problem arises
because the trivalent ion dissociates into a divalent ion in high chloride concentrations,
which is not taken into account in the graphs below. But evening knowing the
dissociation constant, simple chemistry cannot be done to determine the respective
concentrations of the divalent and trivalent cations because trivalent ions
favorably bind to DNA. Therefore, more theoretical work must be done to
understand the system.
Primarily
throughout the summer, I will be working on the nucleosome core particle
experiment. Last summer, Abby set the foundation by writing a procedure to make
the NCPs, and doing some preliminary experiments with them. I plan to build off
Abby’s work by improving the NCP procedure and doing more experiments with
them. This week, I read and tried to understand her procedure, and hopefully
next week I will start making the NCPs!
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