Stein Wolfgang, Talasu Saisupritha, Vidal-Gadea Andrés, DeMaegd Margaret L
School of Biological Science, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790.
J Undergrad Neurosci Educ. 2020 Dec 31;19(1):A36-A51. eCollection 2020 Fall.
The number of undergraduate researchers interested in pursuing neurophysiological research exceeds the research laboratory positions and hands-on course experiences available because these types of experiments often require extensive experience or expensive equipment. In contrast, genetic and molecular tools can more easily incorporate undergraduates with less time or training. With the explosion of newly sequenced genomes and transcriptomes, there is a large pool of untapped molecular and genetic information which would greatly inform neurophysiological processes. Classically trained neurophysiologists often struggle to make use of newly available genetic information for themselves and their trainees, despite the clear advantage of combining genetic and physiological techniques. This is particularly prevalent among researchers working with organisms that historically had no or only few genetic tools available. Combining these two fields will expose undergraduates to a greater variety of research approaches, concepts, and hands-on experiences. The goal of this manuscript is to provide an easily understandable and reproducible workflow that can be applied in both lab and classroom settings to identify genes involved in neuronal function. We outline clear learning objectives that can be acquired by following our workflow and assessed by peer-evaluation. Using our workflow, we identify and validate the sequence of two new Gamma Aminobutyric Acid A (GABAA) receptor subunit homologs in the recently published genome and transcriptome of the marbled crayfish, . Altogether, this allows undergraduate students to apply their knowledge of the processes of gene expression to functional neuronal outcomes. It also provides them with opportunities to contribute significantly to physiological research, thereby exposing them to interdisciplinary approaches.
对从事神经生理学研究感兴趣的本科研究人员数量超过了现有的研究实验室岗位和实践课程机会，因为这类实验通常需要丰富的经验或昂贵的设备。相比之下，基因和分子工具可以更轻松地让本科生参与进来，所需时间或培训更少。随着新测序的基因组和转录组数量激增，存在大量未开发的分子和遗传信息，这将极大地为神经生理过程提供信息。传统训练的神经生理学家往往难以让自己和他们的学员利用新获得的遗传信息，尽管结合遗传和生理技术有明显优势。这在研究历史上没有或只有很少可用遗传工具的生物的研究人员中尤为普遍。将这两个领域结合起来将使本科生接触到更多样化的研究方法、概念和实践经验。本手稿的目的是提供一个易于理解且可重复的工作流程，可应用于实验室和课堂环境，以识别参与神经元功能的基因。我们概述了清晰的学习目标，通过遵循我们的工作流程可以实现这些目标，并通过同行评估进行评估。使用我们的工作流程，我们在最近公布的大理石纹螯虾基因组和转录组中识别并验证了两个新的γ-氨基丁酸A（GABAA）受体亚基同源物的序列。总之，这使本科生能够将他们对基因表达过程的知识应用于功能性神经元结果。这也为他们提供了为生理学研究做出重大贡献的机会，从而使他们接触到跨学科方法。
