Scientific basis for the project

See “introduction” in the student-facing materials.

Brief summary of each session

Day 1: This introduction session involves two introductory lectures about eukaryotic gene regulation and gene reporter systems, including the GUS reporter system used in the practical. The session completes with a brief introduction to the different research questions students can choose to carry out for their research project. Students are expected to select one research question before the start of the second session in the teaching lab and read the Scientific Background in this handbook to prepare for the practical sessions ahead.

Day 2: On this day in the teaching lab, the students develop their hypothesis and design their experiment. After having discussed their experimental design with other students in the group and a demonstrator, the students apply stress treatments to plants.

Day 3: This day starts with a careful phenotypic characterisation of the plants that the student had subjected to the different stress treatments in session 2 (at 6 days after the previous session). Once the students have documented their phenotypes, they collect leaves for GUS staining to visualise defence gene expression.

Day 4: This is a relatively short session during which the students remove the GUS staining solution and replace it with destaining solution to remove the green chlorophyll from the leaves (1 day after the previous day).

Day 5: This final day in the teaching lab involves interpretation of the research results. The students lay out the GUS-stained leaves and document the staining patterns in different ways, while also discussing the outcome of the experiment with other students in their group and the demonstrators.

Day 6: The practical concludes with a Q&A session, where the results of each research question are summarised and the structure and content of the written report are discussed.

Learning objectives

Aims

• To understand how the expression of a chosen gene can be visualised using a reporter construct
• To determine how different environmental signals and interactions between them can affect gene expression
• To understand applications of reporter genes

At the end of this practical, the students should be able to:

• Design an experiment to test a simple hypothesis
• Perform mathematical calculations for chemicals and buffers
• Use a pipette to measure volumes of liquid accurately
• Explain the importance of controls in an experiment and identify the controls in an experiment
• Use a plant reporter line to test a given hypothesis
• Describe the effects of specific signals on the expression of a gene involved in biotic response
• Write your results in a scientific format

If you decide to use this practical, please let us know about it by filling in this short form – it’s not a requirement but we’d love to hear how our ideas are being used!