Proteomics: Are we related????

      Before genomics and other advances in biotechnology scientists would determine the relations between different species based on habitat, behavior, diet, and anatomy. These results could often be wrong or misleading because the way that an animal looks, behaves, eats, etc. cannot show you what the animal's DNA is and allow you to compare it to another animal's. Now with modern advances in genomics (the study of genes/genomes/DNA) and proteomics (the study of proteins) scientists are able to determine relations based on DNA and the different proteins the species produce. Proteomics is more complex than genomics because while the genome in every cell in and organism is the same, the proteins produced in each cell is different. Scientists now actually think that what makes us different from worms might be the noncoding sections of DNA which influence protein production.



       In this lab we will be analyzing the proteins produced by different species of fish in order to determine which fish are more closely related. First we will take a sample of protein from five different fish. Second we will denature the protein samples by introducing them to a buffer and heating them at 95 degrees celcius. Then we will place the denatured proteins into a electrophoresis gel machine and will use the machine. After this is completed we will analyze the results and note that the proteins with the most similar results come from sea life that are the most closely related.

Results

      After electrophoresis our gel came out mostly as we expected. All the samples we put into the gel had shown up clearly except for imitation crab and crab which were cooked as well as the fruit flys which didn't have enough protein in them. After analyzing the gel we determined that the bands created by the samples of tuna and salmon were very similar and the bands created by the samples of scallop and shrimp were also very similar. This lead us to believe that tuna and salmon are closely related while shrimp and scallops are also closely related. Some errors that could have occured could be: the misnumbering of samples, not using enough sample, and pipetting mistakes.