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ERIC Number: EJ1444501
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Jun
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: EISSN-1938-1328
Available Date: N/A
Harnessing the Topics of Cytochrome P450 Enzymology and Artemisinin to Teach a Semester-Long Biochemistry Laboratory Course
Hadi D. Arman; Tu M. Ho; Kaitlyn Varela; Cynthia S. Veliz; Richard B. Zanni; Armando Rodriguez; Zhiwei Wang; Francis K. Yoshimoto
Journal of Chemical Education, v100 n6 p2233-2242 2023
Eleven different laboratory experiments were designed and executed throughout a semester to provide a meaningful research experience for 23 undergraduate biochemistry majors at UTSA. The topic of the semester was based on the idea of exploring new aspects to enhance our understanding of how the human body uses cytochrome P450 enzymes to metabolize artemisinin, an endoperoxide-containing plant natural product used to treat malaria. Biochemical techniques introduced to the students included computational (dry lab) techniques: the use of bioinformatics tools to design plasmids for protein expression, software to analyze the 3-dimensional structure of proteins, metabolomics software to analyze enzyme-catalyzed reaction extracts by mass spectrometry, and docking software to dock ligands into the active site of proteins. In addition, students performed experimental (wet lab) techniques including: a transformation experiment to incorporate plasmid DNA into bacteria, an extraction of plasmid DNA from bacterial cells, performing enzymatic incubations and preparing samples for analysis by mass spectrometry, and running an SDS protein gel electrophoresis. The semester ended with the use of a web-based program to allow students to visualize the proteins they were studying throughout the semester with a virtual reality headset. This course was taught for the first time at the university, so this manuscript should inspire ideas for future biochemistry laboratory courses taught in the course based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) format.
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A