Undergraduate Researcher
Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States
As an undergraduate in the honors program, I had the privilege of working in a lively, diverse, and experienced biochemistry lab under the direction of T.K.S. Kumar, Ph.D. where our work primarily focused on exploring the chaperone potential of cpSRP43, an important protein in the chloroplast signal recognition particle pathway which assists Light-Harvesting Chlorophyll a/b Binding Proteins in crossing the thylakoid membrane without the input of external energy. The protein was expressed in a culture of BL-21 Star cells and separated using a variety of methods including centrifugation, washing in glutathione Sepharose, cleavage buffering, gel filtration, and SDS-PAGE. Following expression of the protein it was subjected to combinations of thermal and chemical denaturation, including Trypsin digestion and equilibrium unfolding. Circular Dichroism and Fluorescence Spectrometry were used to examine the integrity and activity of the protein following denaturation. Our work found that cpSRP43 exhibited both stability and flexibility in the face of denaturation and had great potential as a chaperone for human needs, both in the healthcare and manufacturing sectors.