Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

This NSERC Research Tools and Infrastructure application seeks funding for a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) thermal cycler to detect and quantify genes and gene expression in several projects proposed by faculty in the Biology Department at the University of New Brunswick.  Real-time PCR is currently the most specific, sensitive, accurate, rapid, and reproducible method available to measure gene copy number and transcript abundance in single organisms and from complex soil and marine environments. Diverse research projects proposed by six UNB Biology researchers for which a real-time PCR thermal cycler is essential are: (1) Measurement of expression of bacterial genes involved in promotion of plant growth in the rhizosphere and in response to regulatory proteins. The goal is to understand how bacteria promote growth of plants and to develop inoculants to increase yields of plants that are important to agriculture and forestry in Canada; (2) Detection and quantification of human enteric viruses introduced into Canadian waters through ship ballast water with the aim of developing strategies to prevent such dissemination; (3) Analysis of gene expression in multicellular algae in response to oxidative stress and DNA damage to test the hypothesis that sex evolved as a mechanism for stress adaptation; (4) Expression analysis of retroduplicated genes across a range of species to reveal the general features of how retroduplications diversify; together with comparative sequence analysis, this will contribute to the fields of genomic organization and evolution; (5) Analysis of transcription profiles of novel light stress related genes in photosynthetic organisms to characterize their role in adaptation to and protection from fluctuations in light intensity; and (6) Measurement of changes in matrix metalloproteinase and related gene expression during zebrafish embryogenesis to investigate the regulatory mechanisms controlling these enzymes in development and disease processes. Students trained in the use of real-time PCR in these research programs will acquire skills that are broadly applicable to medical diagnostics, forensics, environmental and agricultural industries, and molecular biological research.