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2009 Research Project: Bovine Neurofilament Interactions Graduate student Joanna Deek is studying the interactions between the intermediate filaments called neurofilaments, which are found mainly in the cytoskeleton of the neuronal cell axons. Joanna Deek uses neurofilaments found in the spinal cord of cows. There are three types of neurofilament subunits, low, medium and high, which we separate out by using anion exchange chromatography. Neurofilament subunits are reassembled into desired ratios and under specific buffer conditions to form neurofilaments. In order to study the attractive or repulsive nature of neurofilaments, we treat the reassembled neurofilaments with different concentrations of salts such as potassium chloride and magnesium chloride. After treating different samples of neurofilaments, we use light microscopy and small angle x-ray scattering to analyze how the neurofilaments respond to the different amounts of salt concentrations in differing neurofilament subunit ratios. My role was to assist Joanna Deek in preparing the neurofilament samples for analysis, which included the extraction of neurofilaments from the spinal cord of cows, treating the neurofilament samples with the different salt concentrations, and collecting data using light and electron microscopy. Download 2009 Research Project as a PDF file Return to the RET project list |
