By Lucca Muta, Emily Wills

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Theresa Grana

Abstract

SEA-GENES, a Howard Hughes research initiative, is an evolution of the SEA-PHAGES project, which sequenced and annotated the genomes of many bacteriophages. SEA-GENES expands on this project to determine the functions of genes coded by specific phages. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify seven different genes in phage Larva DNA, which were visualized through agarose gel electrophoresis to confirm that the correct genes were amplified. These fragments of phage DNA were purified and transformed into the pExTra plasmid backbone using restriction enzyme digest and isothermal assembly. In future experimentation, phenotypic and interaction assays will be completed to determine the functions of several phage genes in Zapner, generating a unique dataset that could be used to uncover novel phage gene functions with potential therapeutic uses, like fighting antibiotic resistance in the field of medicine.