Protein Families

Caveolin is an important signalling molecule because it interacts with many other proteins and makes cell signaling more efficient. My mentor was curious to see if normal caveolin and the caveolin with the F160X mutation interacted and bound to different proteins. To do this, E.Coli bacteria were first grown with plasmids that encoded for either mutated or normal caveolin. These bacteria were then permeabilized and centrifuged twice to isolate caveolin. Then the caveolin was place in a machine that contained a specific protein that only bound to caveolin. After the caveolin was attached to the surface of the container, heart and lung tissues were passed through. After a few hours, the proteins attached to surface of the tube were removed and then analyzed using SDS-PAGE