M. Abstract and Progress

During this part of the semester my primary investigation went on hold, but it wasn’t forgotten. My professor and I have been working with another person, who was his master’s student, in another project that employs phage display. This new project helped me visualize what I would do once I completed all the rounds of biopanning. This new project used human lungs and brain cDNA libraries to search for biomarkers also. We put on hold my original project because we were given the opportunity to re-submit this project with revision in order to publish it as a paper. It was a great opportunity and learning experience. Since this project uses phage display I will incorporate it with my BioMinds project. In terms of accomplishment (using a 1-5 scale) I have accomplished a 3.5 taking into account that this newer project.

As part of the “Annual Presentation Day” I will present a poster of my investigation and experience in the BioMinds progrm. I will publish the abstract of my project so you can have more insight of the investigation. The title of my poster will be: “Applying T7 phage display as a chemical combinatorial approach to search for specific biomarkers“ and the abstract is the following:

“Phage display is a technique that is becoming extremely popular due to the simplicity and rapid yielding of potent results. The general focus of phage display is on protein-to-protein interaction. The interactions result from using phages, which have been designed to express a certain unique peptide in their capsid surface, which results in diverse and numerous types of phage libraries. This protein will then interact by binding with the chosen targeted ligand. The employment of phage display in this project is aimed to find a specific biomarker and its specificity for the ligand by utilizing a combinatorial chemistry approach.  In order to find a biomarker, a series of biopanning are performed. The biopanning consists of washing away and separating the unbounded phages from the bound ones. The novelty in this investigation is that instead of a molecule or protein as the ligand it is a whole cell. This investigation consists of using phage display for the target cell Staphylococcus aureus in order to find a specific biomarker but also test the specificity of two peptides, nectin and telecephalin, found for Cryptococcus gattii in a previous investigation.  In the primary investigation concerning Staphylococcus aureus, after two rounds of biopanning several phages displaying peptides specific to Staphylococcus aureus were obtained in order to isolate and find that specific biomarker. For the second exercise, a preliminary specificity test was done against other two yeasts, Cryptococcus laurentii and Candida albicans. Results for the specificity test reflects that under the tested conditions the phages were not exclusively specific for Cryptococcus gattii.  Ongoing in silico analysis of the phages isolated against Staphylococcus aureus are being carried to determine the molecular identity of the putative biomarker.”