Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

In the procedures it says I am supposed to recreate a table in my lab notebook. Two columns in that table read "Other Cell Types That Express It" and "Highly Expressed in Other Cell Types?"

The instructions for the first column are: Find the tissue types that looked like they express similar, or higher, levels of the transcription factor. If at least one quarter (such as one of four or three of 12) of the samples have values that are at least 90% of the average signal in your target cell type, write down the name of the tissue types in Table 2 in your lab notebook, under the column titled "Other Cell Types That Express It."

The instructions for the second column are: If you find a graph that has more than five different cell types that highly express the transcription factor, do not bother writing all of these tissue-type names in Table 2. Instead, write "Yes" under the column titled "Highly Expressed in Other Cell Types?"

I do not understand what the difference is between the information I'm supposed to be putting in the different columns. If someone could please explain it to me that would be very helpful. My science fair projects is due in a week.

Hi mjulista ,

Welcome to science buddies!

I think you are doing this excellent, but challenging project.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p009.shtml

In this project you need to first identify a target tissue (organ type) that you would be interested in creating from another tissue. Next, you need to use the bioinformatics database to identify the transcription factors that are present in this issue. And finally, you need to find out what other tissues also produce the same transcription factors.

The idea is to identify a tissue that produces a high percentage of the transcription factors that are needed for your target tissue, as this will probably be a good candidate for transforming to the target tissue. The example shown in the project is for kidney cells.

The columns on your table should be as shown in the table in the procedure section, first column, "target cell type." second column "important transcription factors, third column "other cell types that express it," : fourth column "highly expressed in other cell types." and fifth column, "known functions." . You pick the target cell type and then find the important transcription factors, and information for the other columns in the database.

Does this help? What target cell type are you planning to transform?

Donna Hardy