Module 1

Lecturer: Bevin Engelward
Instructors: Noreen Lyell, Leslie McClain and Maxine Jonas

TA: Molly Bird
Lab manager: Hsinhwa Lee

Overview

In this module you will measure DNA repair using two assays: the comet chip and immuno-fluorescence. Your first task is to critically think through the development of the comet chip assay and determine which conditions provide the best results for loading mammalian cells into the device. To this end, you will consider variables that effect cell loading into the microwells of the comet chip. The data you collect will be used to determine the conditions for subsequent assays.

Next, you will use the comet chip assay to measure DNA damage in response to chemical treatments and to assess repair capacity of across different cell lines. Specifically, you will study the base excision repair (BER) pathway in these experiments. Last, you will examine the effect of chemical treatment on the abundance of double strand breaks using an immuno-fluorescence approach.