Submitted by Krishna Niyogi on
Efficient photosynthesis is essential for productive food crops. However, natural light is highly dynamic and often in excess, resulting in damage to pigments, proteins, and lipids within the chloroplast. To cope with saturating light, plants dissipate excess energy through a process called non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). The goal of this project is to investigate how the essential land plant NPQ protein, PsbS, has evolved across various plant and algal species by transgenically expressing the different PsbS in the model plant Arabidopsis. The undergraduate working on this project will help characterize the phenotypes of the mutant Arabidopsis lines and investigate how changes in protein structure and amino acid sequence relate to altered NPQ phenotypes.
Through this project the undergraduate will learn how to (1) use instruments to phenotype photosynthesis by chlorophyll fluorescence, (2) molecular techniques for detecting gene expression and genotyping and (3) basic laboratory techniques. Depending on early results, there may also be the opportunity to learn protein biochemistry techniques to further resolve mechanisms underlying different NPQ phenotypes.
Minimum qualifications: Biology 1A or 1B (may be taken concurrently), 3.0 GPA, and interest in genetics. Hours are negotiable, but a commitment of at least 12 hours per week is expected