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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

DNA binding sequence, nuclear Gdf5, nuclear Bmp2, nGdf5, nBmp2

College

Life Sciences

Department

Microbiology and Molecular Biology

Abstract

Nuclear Gdf5 (nGdf5) and nuclear Bmp2 (nBmp2) are newly discovered proteins (1); however, their function has not been determined. They were first found while studying enhancer elements of the Col11a2 gene, and a yeast-one hybrid screen suggested that they could bind to the D/E enhancer of this gene. Further experiments confirmed the presence of these proteins in the nuclei of cells and determined the specific mechanism by which they were translocated to the nucleus (1). This work led to the hypotheses that they function as transcription factors, binding to regulatory regions of target genes to modulate transcription. Two years ago, I identified a potential consensus DNA binding sequence for the protein nGdf5 using a technique called cyclic amplification and selection of targets (CASTing). The initial intent of this project was to do the same for nBmp2, but I decided that further analysis of nGdf5 was needed to prove that I truly identified a consensus DNA binding sequence for nGdf5.

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