Marine Biotech. Fellowship: Cloning the cbp Gene of Vibrio Alginolyticus: Application as a Probe in Marine Waters

铜是生物系统中最常见的金属之一，但铜离子水平升高对微生物和高等生物有毒。细胞已经发展出高度保守的机制和不同的策略来减少细胞中过量铜的有害影响。众所周知，铜在一种常见的海洋细菌——溶藻弧菌中诱导产生一种对铜有亲和力的细胞外蛋白。本项目研究了两个假设：(1)铜结合蛋白诱导是对金属水平升高的特定反应；(2)微生物金属结合蛋白对海洋中生物可利用铜水平的调节有重要贡献。哈伍德博士将克隆铜结合蛋白基因，该基因编码铜诱导的铜结合蛋白。为了确定铜结合蛋白探针在天然水体中检测基因序列和基因表达的有效性，我们将开发一种铜结合蛋白特异性寡核苷酸探针，并在天然海洋微生物种群中进行测试。

Copper is among the most common metals in biological systems, yet elevated copper ion levels are toxic to microorganisms and higher organisms. Cells have developed highly conserved mechanisms and divergent strategies to reduce the deleterious effects of excess copper in the cell. It is known that copper induces the production of an extracellular protein with affinity for copper in a common marine bacterium, Vibrio alginolyticus. This project examines two hypotheses: (1) copper-binding protein induction is a specific response to elevated metal levels and (2) the microbial metal- binding proteins contribute significantly to regulation of the levels of bio-available copper in the ocean. Dr. Harwood will clone the copper-binding protein gene, which encodes the copper- induced, copper-binding protein. An oligonucleotide probe specific to the copper-binding protein will be developed and tested with natural populations of marine microbes in order to determine the efficacy of copper-binding protein probes for detecting the gene sequene and gene expression in natural waters.