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What Makes the “Blue” in Blueberries? -The Truth about Myb. Dylan Coughtrey Laboratory Methods in Genomics Spring 2011. What is Myb ?. Acronym taken from myeloblastosis First recognized as an oncogene in avian myeloblastosis virus
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What Makes the “Blue” in Blueberries?-The Truth about Myb Dylan Coughtrey Laboratory Methods in Genomics Spring 2011
What is Myb? • Acronym taken from myeloblastosis • First recognized as an oncogene in avian myeloblastosis virus • Currently being studied to further identify genetic factors in cancer patients
What does it do? • Mybtranscriptionfactors regulate gene expresion by binding directly to DNA • Localizes to recently replicated DNA in mitotically cycling and endocycling cells • Absence of Myb has been shown to cause increases in: • Mitotic arrest • Abnormal chromosome number • Faulty spindle formation
What does it do? • Myb factors regulate production of anthocyanins • Change with pH (give the fruit its blue color) • Potentially great health benefits, positive effects against: • Cancer • Aging and neurological diseases • Inflammation • Diabetes • Bacterial infection
Protein Structure • Myb proteins are defined by the Myb Domain • Sequence of approximately 50 amino acids • Can be repeated up to three times • Repeat domains are imperfect, but highly conserved • The Myb Domain allow the protein to bind to DNA and regulate transcription
My Progress • Blasted for known Myb nucleotide sequences from Vitisvinifera(grape) and Arabidopsis thaliana • Found nothing • Knew that there had to be Myb factors in blueberry • Found my miracle paper: • Analysis of the grape MYB R2R3 subfamily reveals expanded wine quality-related clades and conserved gene structure organization across Vitis and Arabidopsis genomes • José Tomás Matus, Felipe Aquea, and Patricio Arce-Johnson
Finally Found! • BLASTed consensus sequence using tblastn • Searches for amino acid sequences in genomic DNA • Found 29 potential Myb genes in the Illumina data • Contained various portions of the conserved sequence • Some fully conserved and others only partially conserved
Further Steps • Identifying gene structure of Mybs in blueberry • Determine patterns in chromosomal arrangement of Myb genes • Compare each of these to that of closely related plants • Examine various Myb genes in the genome to determine significant differences that could affect function
Works Consulted • http://www.stanford.edu/group/lipsick/whatsmyb%20long.htm • http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2007/05/26/pcp.pcm066.short • http://www.stanford.edu/group/lipsick/pdf/Dubendorff%20and%20Lipsick%20Oncogene%201999.pdf • http://www.gentcare.com/EnProductShow.asp?ID=52 • http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/osu-sfn030507.php • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2507771/?tool=pubmed