Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Managing Cellular Factories: If we think of our cells that make up our bodies as small factories, the proteins in the cell are the workers. Each of us has thousands of these worker proteins in each cell. As you might imagine, things get pretty crowded and organization is needed to make sure things run smoothly. To this end, some specialized proteins called enzymes act as the managers of the cell. They communicate instructions to worker proteins using chemical signals. These instructions determine what jobs get done. My lab works on two types of enzyme "managers", called KATs and KDACs. These regulate a set of instructions in the cell called acetylation. Acetylation is a chemical modification that is placed onto proteins by KATs and removed by KDACs. We have uncovered evidence that acetylation is a common set of instructions handed out to many proteins around the cell. The long-term goal of this research program is to advance knowledge by determining how KAT and KDAC enzymes know which proteins to contact with acetylation `instructions'. In our short term aims, we will investigate a novel idea put forth by a former MSc student, that specific KAT and KDAC enzymes work together to regulate the acetylation of the same proteins. We can think of this as managers from different departments collaborating on the same project. We will investigate this hypothesis using a collection of advanced techniques including an instrument called a mass spectrometer that allows us to identify acetylations on individual proteins. The program, which is based on work completed with our previous NSERC funding, will use the simple baker's yeast S. cerevisiae, which serves as an excellent model of a eukaryotic (advanced) cell. But, yeast is easily amendable to work in the lab, which will speed completion of the project aims. The work will be carried out by my MSc student, a PhD-trained post-doctoral fellow, and approximately ten undergraduate students. The students will receive expert training in technologies that are in demand in industry and academia. They will also receive training in communications, and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Finally, they will conduct outreach within the community. The output of the work is new knowledge about fundamental processes that occur in different types of cells. Since the work is in yeast, there are also applications in the biotechnology industry including the use of yeast in wine making and the production of alternative fuels. As such our program is of tremendous value to Canada.