Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) at Northwest Indian College (NWIC)

部落学院和大学方案(TCUP)的一个目标是提高为本国土著学生服务的特定高等教育机构的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教学和研究能力。在这些机构扩大STEM课程的范围，可以扩大学生在STEM领域追求富有挑战性和回报的职业的机会，提供在可能具有文化意义的领域进行研究的机会，并鼓励社区和世代对科学和数学教育的欣赏。该项目直接符合这一目标，而且还将增加有关噬菌体基因组学的知识。西北印度学院的学生将从校园内或附近采集的样本中收集和分离他们自己的分枝杆菌噬菌体(噬菌体)。学生们将提纯所选的噬菌体并分离其基因组DNA，然后对部分噬菌体基因组DNA进行限制性内切酶分析，以确认基因组DNA的完整性，并检查限制模式是否与先前表征的噬菌体相似。学生们还将准备用纯化的噬菌体固定的电子显微镜网格，并与西华盛顿大学合作，使用Vega TS 5136 MM电子显微镜确定它们的噬菌体形态。然后，一个噬菌体的基因组将被送到能源部的联合基因组研究所(JGI)进行基因组测序，在课程的后半部分，学生们将使用基因搜索工具来识别和注释可能的基因。学生们还将把他们的基因调用结果与已知的、具有特征的分支杆菌噬菌体基因组进行比较，然后将完成的产品上传到GenBank，这是一个由国家生物技术信息中心(NCBI)维护的遗传序列在线数据库。

A goal of the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) is to increase the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instructional and research capacities of specific institutions of higher education that serve the Nation's indigenous students. Expanding the STEM curricular offerings at these institutions expands the opportunities of their students to pursue challenging, rewarding careers in STEM fields, provides for research studies in areas that may be culturally significant, and encourages a community and generational appreciation for science and mathematics education. This project aligns directly with that goal, and moreover will increase the body of knowledge on the genomics of bacteriophages. Northwest Indian College students will collect and isolate their own mycobacteriophage (phage) from samples collected on or near campus. Students will purify the elected phage and isolate its genomic DNA, and then conduct a restricted digest analysis of a portion of phage genomic DNA to confirm genomic DNA integrity and to examine if the restriction pattern is similar to previously characterized phages. Students will also prepare electron microscopy grids fixed with their purified phage and work with Western Washington University to determine their phage morphology using a Vega TS 5136MM electron microscope. The genome of one phage will then be sent to the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) for genomic sequencing, and during the second half of the course the students will use gene-searching tools to identify and annotate the probable genes. Students will also compare the results of their gene calling to known, characterized mycobacteriophage genomes before uploading their completed product to GenBank, an online database of genetic sequences maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).