Compairing Heatshock Proteins Across Multiple Insect Species.

Presenter: Jacob Lapier

Co-Presenter(s):
N/A

Presenter Status: Undergraduate student

Academic Year: 22-23

Semester: Spring

Faculty Mentor: Nathan Rank

Department: Biology

Funding Source/Sponsor: Class Project

President's Strategic Plan Goal: Sustainability and Environmental Inquiry

Abstract:
Heat shock proteins are some of the most conserved among most species, even us humans. Focusing on the HSP70 family of proteins related to thermal stress and regulation; this presentation is about comparing HSP70 proteins among several insect species together to find out just how similar or different they are. This will show how conserved the protein is among insect species which can give us an idea of how this protein originated or how necessary it is for insects at large. The data was gathered using a reference paper that compared Melitaea cinxia HSP70 genes to other insects. The Melitaea cinxia genes from the paper were ran through BLAST to find the proteins that are the most similar to them. These proteins most were were moved to Geneious where they were aligned, then made into a tree with Melitaea cinxia, Anopheles gambiae, Apis mellifera, Drosophila melanogaster, Danaus plexippus, Heliconius melpomene, and Tribolium Castanium HSP70 genes. The resulting phylogenetic tree showed all the sequences being similar as expected, however there was an out group of Apis mellifera, and Drosophila melanogaster. These results tell us that out of the insects studied, those in the order Hymenoptera and Diptera are the most likely to have a common ancestor where HSP70 was initially evolved from.