Bacterial Diversity Studies Using the 16S rRna Gene Provide a Powerful Research-Based Curriculum for Molecular Biology Laboratory

Students are evaluated via: (1) laboratory notebooks (50 pts. per unit); (2) quizzes (30 pts. per unit); and (3) phylogenetics project (75 pts.). For projects, students analyze their data against an appropriate backbone of GenBank data. See also - Unit Four description.

LAB NOTEBOOK ELEMENTS

(1) General: titled, dated, and written in ink
(2) Pre-Lab: (prepared in advance of lab)

(3) Observations
(4) Discussion/Conclusions

PHYLOGENETICS PROJECT ELEMENTS

Sequence Tables
- Original sequences and BLAST results
- GenBank sequences, accession, and citations

Alignment
- Annotated with known 16S rRNA stem-loop structures
- Discuss methods/assumptions, and evaluate data

Phylogenetic Tree
- Maximum parsimony tree with bootstraps
- Publication-style figure legend for final tree
- Discuss all aspects of the significance of the trees

Schluezen et al., Small Ribosomal Subunit of T. thermophilus. PDB download from NCBI MMDB Structure Library.

Nicole Mullins (left) and Jean Earnest (right) recording observations during lab (April, 2001).