Two Suns for Tatooine

During the week of October 25th, I worked on figuring out what kind of protocol to use in order to do the cactus spine DNA extraction and I was also working on finding sources for the final paper. Matt happened to lend me some books such as A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert, Environmental Biology of Agaves and Cacti, and Cacti Biology and Uses. The paper will be about how I was able to extract DNA from a cholla and how I was able to distinguish the polymorphic banding. I hope the protocol I use will be able to produce a high yield of cholla DNA. 

A New Republic

This week I began with running a new PCR with primer 4 in order to get clear banding and making fresh gels for electrophoresis. I was able to run four gels yesterday and I looked at the results. Unfortunately, they did not come out the way I had expected. The ladder did not come out as clear as the others had and the bands were just as sloppy. I will be running new gels today in order to see if it was the total amount of time running the gels that had affected my results. I will most likely change the time of how long I want my gels to run.

Colony A Primer 4 gel

 Colony B Primer 4 gel

Colony C Primer 4 gel 

Colony D Primer 4 gel

Figuring Out the Confederacy and Moving Further

I was looking at photos of my gels from the previous semester and I figured out why my bands were not coming out as great as they should. The best primer to use for amplification of my ant DNA should be primer 4. The photos of the bands amplified from primer 4 are the most clear.

Here is the photo compared to the primer I was using.

The primer I was using.

 

The primer I will be using from now on.

 





This week I was mainly working on my research proposal that I did not get to run the new PCR, but I will as soon as I can. My proposal dealt with my new project on extracting DNA from

Cylindropuntia bigelovii (teddy bear cholla). I cannot wait to start the cacti DNA extraction protocol. I'll be super busy in the lab even more from now on!

 





Reaching Endor

I am still analyzing my gels in order to see what is the problem with not getting clear banding, but I have also started my research on extracting DNA from plants. I will begin extracting DNA from cholla in hopes of seeing similar banding in each sample of cholla. I also began planting bonsai trees. I planted a Japanese Red Maple and a Katsura. If they germinate soon, I might just try to extract DNA from those little trees as well! Below are the pictures of the bonsais I have recently planted in the lab:

Japanese Red Maple Bonsai



Katsura Bonsai (Has a cotton candy smell.)

Solving The Mystery of the Running Speeder Bikes

This week I ran another PCR because Matt thought it would be better than nothing. I was not able to understand why I was not receiving any bands in my gels. I made some fresh gels yesterday and ran my fresh amplified DNA in hopes to see if there would be some polymorphic bands. To my astonishment/relief, there were bands! But now there is a new mystery to solve. The gels seemed to have stars in them when put under the UV light. We are not sure if this was due to the DNA running off in little fragments or maybe the agarose was not cooked fully. We are all on the case and I will try my best to figure this out soon enough!