YEAST MUTANTS AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL, PHASE I

酵母突变体作为教育工具，第一阶段

• 批准号: 6188438
• 负责人: Gary Edward Dean
• 金额: $ 25.35万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1998
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1998-09-01 至 2002-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6188438
• 关键词: Internet; adenosinetriphosphatase; cell biology; computer network; curriculum; education evaluation /planning; elementary school; enzyme structure; fungal genetics; health science research; information dissemination; molecular biology; mutant; nucleic acid sequence; science education; secondary schools; teacher; training

To stimulate an interest in science, children need to be exposed to real scientific research to sense the excitement of discovery and gain a feel for what the scientific method truly means. Because of the increasing importance of molecular biology in our daily lives, it is also desirable to expose them to modern molecular biological methods. Finally, in order to be widely disseminated, any program should involve reasonably inexpensive materials. The overall objective of this Phase I proposal is to develop a method to involve school-age children in real scientific research in order to enhance and motivate their educational science curriculum. We have designed the experiments described herein to safely illustrate basic biological ideas in the elementary and secondary school classroom. In brief, the experiments are designed to generate and characterize yeast mutants in a poorly-understood but important large membrane-bound proton-pumping enzyme termed the vacuolar ATPase (V- ATPase). This enzyme is responsible for producing the acidic conditions found in the lumen of such structures as the yeast vacuole, and organelles in higher cells such as the lysosome and the neurosecretory vesicle. Teachers will first be trained over the summer in basic cell biology and in the methods used in the experiments. Teachers will then have their students perform these experiments in the classroom. Students will isolate the (plasmid-borne) gene from each mutant after proving phenotype and send it to the P.I.'s laboratory for sequence determination. All sequences will be shared with the students. Students will be asked to predict the consequences of the mutations on the structure of the enzyme (based on a plausible crystal structure modeled after the known F1FO ATPase structure) and to develop hypotheses about further mutations. At the discretion of the P.I., certain of these hypotheses will then be tested by a subsequent group of students. Because teaching a subject has the effects of solidifying what has been learned, another important aspect of this project will be the involvement of secondary or middle school children to serve as mentors for elementary school children, both in face-to-face learning situations and via the Internet. To share the sequence and assay data, to insure that data collection is occurring in the proper manner, and to provide expert experimental help for both students and teachers, the schoolchildren's classroom will be linked with the laboratory of a scientist (the P.I.) interested and involved in understanding V-ATPase structure and function. We anticipate that dissemination of this program (or similar programs focused on other genes) will be reasonably straightforward. Teachers and students will both gain a strong appreciation of how science really works and we will collect fundamentally interesting mutants in the V-ATPase.

为了激发孩子们对科学的兴趣，孩子们需要接触到真实的 科学研究感受发现的兴奋并获得一种感觉 科学方法的真正含义。因为不断增加的 分子生物学在我们日常生活中的重要性，这也是可取的 让他们接触到现代分子生物学方法。最后，在 为了广泛传播，任何节目都应该合理地涉及 便宜的材料。此第一阶段提案的总体目标是 是开发一种让学龄儿童参与真正的科学研究的方法 研究，以加强和激励他们的教育科学 课程设置。我们设计这里描述的实验是为了安全 说明小学和中学的基本生物学概念 教室。简而言之，这些实验旨在产生和 一个鲜为人知但重要的大型酵母突变株的特征 膜结合的质子泵被称为液泡ATPase(V-ATPase) ATPase)。这种酶负责产生酸性条件 在酵母液泡等结构的管腔中发现，以及 高等细胞中的细胞器，如溶酶体和神经分泌 水泡。教师将首先在基础单元中接受暑期培训 生物学和实验中使用的方法。然后老师们就会 让他们的学生在教室里做这些实验。 学生们将从每个突变体中分离出(质粒携带的)基因 证明表型并送到P.I.S实验室进行测序 决心。所有序列都将与学生共享。 学生们将被要求预测突变对人类健康的影响 酶的结构(基于合理的晶体结构 根据已知的F1FO ATPase结构建模)并开发假说 关于进一步的突变。在私家侦探的自由裁量权下， 这些假设随后将由随后的一组学生进行测试。 因为教授一门学科具有巩固已有知识的效果 了解到，该项目的另一个重要方面将是 让中学或中学的孩子参与担任导师 对于小学生来说，无论是在面对面的学习环境中 并通过互联网。共享测序和化验数据，确保 该数据收集正在以适当的方式进行，并提供 为学生和教师提供专家实验帮助， 学生的教室将与一个实验室连接起来 科学家(私家侦探)对V-ATPase感兴趣并参与了解 结构和功能。我们期待着这一消息的传播 计划(或专注于其他基因的类似计划)将是合理的 直截了当。教师和学生都将获得一个强大的 欣赏科学是如何工作的，我们将收集 从根本上来说，V-ATPase中有趣的突变。