Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU Program)
June 17- August 23, 2002
Overview:
An NSF-Sponsored Program to Provide Undergraduates Research Experiences
in Plant Cell Biology
Undergraduate students were invited to apply to the Center for
Plant Cell Biology (CEPCEB) to pursue individual research projects
in the area of plant cell biology. Eight students were accepted
to this 10-week residential summer program. Each student had
a faculty and a graduate or postgraduate mentor. In the initial
week of the program, students were introduced to the basics of plant
cell biology as well as developing areas in plant cell biology in
which UCR has expertise, including genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics,
through a series of lecture/laboratory exercises. Students then
spent nine weeks on a research project of their choice. To further
enrich the students and to guide them toward graduate studies, students
participated in workshops to enhance learning skills and professional
development, and to discuss ethics in science.
The schedule of events for the 10-week session was as follows:
Week One: Attend a week of lecture/labs to become
oriented to the program and to pick a research project for in-depth
study.
Week Two- Nine: Pursue individual research projects.
Attend weekly lab meetings with the other awardees. Attend
weekly CEPCEB research presentations.
Week Ten: Complete a write-up of the laboratory project.
Present a 15-minute talk detailing the results of the project.
Undergraduate students who participated in the REU program had
to be enrolled in a two- or four-year college, and be citizens or
permanent residents of the U.S.A. Students were expected to
have completed one year of Chemistry and Biology in preparation
for this program.
Back to Top 
Faculty
The awardees had the opportunity to work with the following members
of the Center for Plant Cell Biology. The area of research
in each laboratory is indicated. Please follow the links to
the members web page to further explore the research areas.
Back to Top
REU Students and their
Summer 2002 Experiences
Please click on the following student links to see student photos
and read about their Summer 2002 experiences working in CEPCEB laboratories.
Eduardo Cen
Marjannie Eloi
Susan Garity
Courtney Hamada
Mattie Irion
Jennifer Jones
Derrick Sergeant
Isha Wallace
 |
Eduardo
Cen
REU Student in Zhenbiao
Yang's Lab
I have been working with pollen tubes from transgenic
Arabidopsis thaliana plants as a model to study a G
protein-mediated signaling pathway that acts as a switch for
an array of physiological effects in the cell. The genetic
transformation technology and molecular techniques I have
been learning are valuable information and will most likely
prove very useful in my goals as a research scientist. The
experience of working in Plant Cell Biology has shown me that
good science can be applied to a variety of systems and models;
and conversely, one model can be used in a variety of applications
of good science.
Overall, my experience here has been very rewarding.
Back to REU Students
|
Marjannie
Eloi
REU Student in Elizabeth Bray's
Lab
I am currently working in Dr. Elizabeth Bray's laboratory
at UC Riverside. The focus of study in this laboratory is
on the effects of plants under water-deficit stress. An important
response of plants to this stress is the accumulation of the
plant hormone, abscisic acid (ABA). The goal of my project
this summer is to determine how other plant hormones interact
with the accumulation of ABA under water-deficit stress. Two
plant hormones, ethylene and auxin, are being examined to
determine if there is any significant interaction. I am growing
Columbia wild-type Arabidopsis seedlings on plates containing
precursors of ethylene and auxin. After three days of incubation,
I am exposing these seedlings to different water-deficit stress
levels. I am measuring ABA and proline levels using an ABA
radioimmuniassay and proline assay. I will determine if any
of these hormones affect the accumulations of ABA or proline
under water-deficit stress.
This is my first research experience. I am enjoying my time
and learning a lot of valuable information. I really enjoy
the hands-on experience of working on and running my own experiments.
I really like this program because I have my own project to
work on. I now have a much clearer view of what research is
really like. The program is great and I am very happy and
thankful that I was selected to be one of the eight students
in this program. I feel my experience here will stay with
me for a lifetime.
Back to REU Students
|
 |
 |
Susan
Garity
REU Student in Linda Walling's
Lab
The project that I am working on is to identify genes regulated
by a phloem-feeding insect, the silverleaf whitefly (Bernisia
argentifolii) using gene trap/enhancer trap technology. The
project is two-fold. Objective 1 required us to grow wild-type
Arabidopsis plants in insecticide-free soil and infest them
with silverleaf whiteflies. We then collected tissue from
these plants and also our controls at 6 different time points
over a course of 36 days. After all 6 time point tissues have
been collected, we then can extract RNA from both our control
and infested leaves and run an agarose gel. After this is
completed, we need to transfer the RNA to a membrane and hybridize
it with two different gene probes; PDF1.2 defensin and BGL2,
β-glucanase. These genes are known to act exclusively
in one of two defense-response pathways; the jasmonic acid-dependent
and salicylic acid-dependent. The last part of this objective
would be to autoradiograph signals to see the increases in
RNAs during infestation. This experiment will identify if
WF feeding induces any of the known defense-signaling pathways.
The second objective of my project is screening a part of
the Arabidopsis gene-trap (GT) and enhancer trap (ET) line
available here at UCR. After growing these lines in insecticide-free
soil under long-day conditions, we infested each flat with
750 wilverleaf whiteflies and changed them to short-day conditions.
Non-infested controls of the Arabidopsis lines were also grown.
After 21 days of infestation, we then harvested the developmentally-matched
tissue from both the infested plants and our controls. After
taking down the screen, the leaves were histochemically stained
to identify any GUS activity. Microscopy was done to determine
any GUS staining patterns, which were recorded in a GT/ET
datasheet. After selecting two lines that I thought were good
candidates based on their staining patterns, I then re-grew
the two lines and extracted Genomic DNA from two-week old
seedlings. TAIL PCR will be done to identify the gene driving
reporter gene expression. A database search will let me know
if the gene I have isolated is novel or has been previously
characterized. Both objectives will help in determining how
plants respond to phloem-feeding insects.
Over the course of this internship I have been able to gain
knowledge of many different lab methods and techniques. I
have been able to see for myself what goes on in a research
laboratory and have the opportunity to do hands-on experiments
on my own project. The skills and knowledge that I have acquired
over the past weeks are priceless. I have learned so much
from my PI, Dr. Linda Walling; mentor, Sonia Zarate; and other
lab members. It has been an awesome experience and the guidance,
instruction and encouragement have been amazing. This truly
will be a summer that I will never forget, and the skills
and techniques that I have learned over the past few weeks
will surely be put to use in the future. I am very thankful
for being able to participate in such a great internship as
an undergraduate.
Back to REU Students
|
Courtney
Hamada
REU Student in Betty Lord's
Lab
This summer I have been working on determining which chemicals
disrupt pollen tube adhesion. The chemical genetics experiment
consists of creating an artifical matrix of pectin and SCA
and adding to it chemicals as well as pre-germinated pollen
tubes, and seeing the effect it has on the adhesion of the
pollen tubes to the matrix. Before this summer, I had never
worked in a lab before. I was a little intimidated at first;
however, that disappeared once my time in the lab began. Every
day I learn new and interesting information. My time here
always seems to just fly by. I also could not ask for a better
enrionment to work in. My mentor, Jean-Claude Mollet, has
to be the most patient and understanding person I have ever
encountered. If I do not understand something at first, he
has at least five other ways he can explain it to me. Also,
the graduate students (Sunran Kim and Juan Dong), Kathie Eckard,
the other undergraduate student (Kimberly Tan), and of course,
Dr. Lord, have all helped me immensely. The experience I have
gained working in Dr. Lord's lab is invaluable. I know it
will be extremely useful, not only in the rest of my studies,
but also in my future plans. I want to go to medical school
and possibly be involved in research. I am very grateful for
having this opportunity made available to me.
Back to REU Students
|
 |
 |
Mattie
Irion
REU Student in Shou-Wei Ding's
Lab
In the seven weeks doing research in the Ding lab, I have
had the opportunity to participate in extensive laboratory
procedures directly correlated with the cutting-edge research
presently being studied involving RNA silencing and the involvement
of miRNAs in gene regulation. It was a privilege to be involved
in the review process of several papers submitted for possible
publication in this growing area of genomics -- a responsibility
that Dr. Ding normally reserves for graduate and post doctorate
participants. I feel blessed to have been mentored by Hong
Wei Li, a post doctorate participant in the lab. He was incredibly
patient and determined to expose me to the most valuable lab
techniques and indispensable information in genomics that
I am certain to be ahead of my peers and that I am certain
to carry over into medical school. This type of experience
and exposure is an "invaluable opportunity" for
any undergraduate, which many must wait to get once in graduate
school. I am honored to have been selected as one of the first
eight participants of this NSF-funded research program, and
I would like to recognize and thank all those that participated
from CEPCEB.
Back to REU Students
|
|
The objective of my project in the Bailey-Serres lab is to
determine whether Arabidopsis thaliana RopGAP
genes (encoding Rho like protein of plants, GTPase Activating
Proteins) are differentially expressed in response to stress
induced by hypoxia, cold and DCMU (3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea,
an inhibitor of photosynthetic electron transport).
Airica Baxter-Burrel, a graduate student in Dr. Bailey-Serres'
lab, has demonstrated that RopGTPases participate in transduction
of signals that regulate gene expression in response to hypoxia
(Baxter-Burrel et al. 2002). Part of this includes
the differential regulation of one RopGAP gene (RopGAP4)
in response to oxygen deprivation. However, it is not known
whether any other Arabidopsis RopGAP genes (RopGAP
1,2,3,5 or 6) are involved in the hypoxic response
or whether RopGAP genes are involved in other plant
stress responses. This is being tested using Reverse Transcriptase-Polymerase
Chain Reaction (RT-PCR, a method used to determine the abundance
of an mRNA transcript).
Another question being addressed is whether DCMU causes oxidative
stress that induces the same Rop signaling pathway involved
in transduction of hypoxia signals. This can be determined
by probing differential regulation of other components of
the Rop signaling pathway: ADH (Alcohol Dehydrogenase), GUS
(β-glucuronidase) and H2O2,
in addition to the RopGAP4 gene. To do this, RT-PCR,
ADH activity assays, GUS activity assays and H2O2
measurements are being performed using both, tissue from wild-type
Arabidopsis and tissue from a mutant in which the RopGAP4
gene is disrupted with a GUS reporter gene.
At the time I came to the REU program the Bailey-Serres lab
had protocols for hypoxia and cold stress induction in Arabidopsis,
but not for DCMU stress induction. One of my tasks was to
develop a protocol for treating Arabidopsis seedlings
with DCMU and determining the degree of DCMU inhibition of
photosynthetic electron transport in Arabidopsis seedlings
using a fluorescence induction assay. This employed my previous
experience using fluorescence assays to screen cyanobacterial
mutants for perturbed oxygen evolving complexes.
I am appreciative of Dr. Bailey-Serres' sensitivity to my
interests in allowing me to integrate my previous work using
fluorescence assays with this project by allowing me to investigate
the effect of DCMU on gene expression. She and other members
of her lab have done a fine job teaching and answering my
questions. This and the wide applicability of the techniques
I am learning in this project make this an experience extremely
worthwhile.
Baxter-Burrell AY, Yang Z, Springer PS, and
Bailey-Serres J (2002) RopGAP4-Dependent Rop GTPase Rheostat
Control of Arabidopsis Oxygen Deprivation Tolerance. Science
296: 2026-2028
Back to REU Students
|
 |
 |
My ultimate goal is to become a college or university science
professor. I already knew that I enjoyed teaching, having
had a lot of experience in that area. But a science professor
must also do research. I had very little experience doing
full-time work in research before entering this program. I
am happy to say that the experience has been extremely valuable
and enjoyable. The instruction I have received on laboratory
and research techniques are sure to serve me well in the future.
My research focused on some of the components of plant cell
walls and what happens when their normal function is interrupted.
I had a wonderful time investigating this question. What I
enjoyed most of all was the freedom to be able to eventually
set up my own experiments and be responsible for my own data
collection and results evaluation. I have only good things
to say about the ten weeks I spent here.
Back to REU Students
|
|
I've been researching genes involved in the biosynthesis
of plant cell walls. I use molecular techniques to study the
expression of two genes that seem to be related. I also use
computer analysis programs to compare homologues of the two
genes in other organisms.
Working in a research laboratory has been a great experience.
I get to do most of my research on my own and there is always
some one to ask for help when I need. it. This experience
is not intimidating, as I initially thought. Everyone in the
lab is friendly and very supportive.
I enjoyed the experience so much that now I realize more
than ever that I really want a career in research. (I also
realized that I like working with plants.) I learned a lot
about scientific research this summer. I don't think I could
have learned so much anywhere else.
I thank Dr. Raikhel for an opportunity that I will never
forget.
Back to REU Students
|
 |
Back to Top
|
