Publication Date

2025

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Joseph Marquardt, Jason Stewart, Ajay Srivastava

Degree Program

Department of Biology

Degree Type

Master of Science

Abstract

Cell shape is essential to understanding the normal regulatory processes that occur within the cell and can indicate there are abnormalities present when there is dysfunction in the cell's development, which can have broader implications regarding human disease. The morphogenesis pathway couples cell division to the timely formation of a daughter bud in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and consists of Elm1, Hsl1, Hsl7, and Swe1 proteins which interact with septins at the bud neck to provide stability for the bud and to facilitate cell division. Elm1 is needed for the recruitment of Hsl1 and subsequently Hsl7. Hsl7 will then tether Swe1 to the septin scaffold at the bud neck. Depending upon the time during the cell cycle, Swe1 is in the cytoplasm interacting with Cdc28, inhibiting Cdc28 from furthering the progression into mitosis. The interactions in this pathway are thought to be linear, however, there is evidence to suggest that this may not be the case. Our research investigated the interactions between Elm1 and Hsl7 in the cell and the role of other morphogenesis pathway protein and their interactions. Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) was utilized to test the interactions between Elm1 and Hsl7. In vitro interaction assays were then utilized to further test protein interactions through protein purification of Elm1 and Hsl7. Kinase Interaction Assays were performed understand any phosphorylation events that may occur, and Phos-Tag SDS-PAGES were used to see the phosphorylation events of our proteins of interest. The results shown here suggest that Elm1 and Hsl7 interaction occurs but is not localized to the bud neck. The results also determined that Spc72 has novel interactions with other morphogenesis pathway proteins, suggesting that there may be a mechanistic interaction at the centrosome before bud neck regulation.

Disciplines

Biology | Cell Biology | Life Sciences | Molecular Biology

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