Monday, March 18, 2013

Week #9 (3/10/13-3/16/13):

Happy Daylight Saving Time! I am writing this blog from the comfort of my hotel in South Carolina! I escaped the long winter of Minnesota and get to hang out on the shoreline of Myrtle Beach for a week!

This past week in class we discussed the implications of regulatory divergence modifies limb length between mammals a paper written by Chris J. Cretekos et al. It is quite an interesting paper. It gave me a developmental perspective of how exactly bats and mice differ in their gene expression throughout their respective gestation periods. Their experimental methods were quite intriguing and intimidating for me at the same time. Since I am not familiar with many DNA sequencing techniques, it was difficult to mull through the paper and decipher their results, however, I did learn quite a bit. For instance, Prx1 plays a major role in the proper elongation in bat wings. The paper hypothesized that it is indeed Prx1 (or MHox)  that contributes to the morphological differences in forelimb development of both the bat and mouse. However, Prx1 did not explain the whole story behind limb morphogenesis. In their experiment, their Prx1 mutants did not reproduce the shortened limb phenotype of mice which Prx1 was knocked out. This led them to believe there are additional factors, such as the possibility of another limb enhancer.

Well, I think I'm done. Off to the beach! 


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