Thanks to a joint venture grant from the biology departments of Colorado College and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, seven CC students and graduates worked hand in hand with UCCS to publish and co-author their paper, “Conserved RNA-Binding Proteins Required for Dendrite Morphogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans Sensory Neurons.”
Their research looks at the molecular mechanisms behind how dendrites (an extension of the nerve) grow. These kinds of dendritic defects have been associated with a number of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer Disease, Autism, and Fragile X Syndrome.
“The take-away from our project would be that we found a set of RNA-binding proteins that cause dendrite growth defects in C. elegans (nematodes),” said senior co-author Margaret Wolf. “These RNA-binding proteins also cause dendritic defects in fruit flies and all have orthologs or similar proteins expressed in the human brain.”
In addition to Wolf, CC senior Courtney Tytus and junior Julia Barney collaborated as co-authors for this empirical research piece.
Other alumni co-authors include Genevieve Kerr, Kristen Wells, Leah Kellogg, and Margo Simon.
CC’s lab technician Simona Antonacci, as well as Professors Darrell Killian and Eugenia Olesnicky. are also listed as authors, with Antonacci as the first author.
The Killian lab started funding this research through a $677,091 National Science Foundation grant given to the research team a little more than two years ago.
“I was fortunate enough to get involved during the early stages of the project as I began researching the summer after my sophomore year,” said Wolf. “This year, I’ve worked mostly on writing my thesis and finishing up a few experiments here and there. Once the research for the paper was completed, which took about two years or so, the paper only took a couple of weeks to write.”
The publishing process of research in academic journals is a long and arduous one.
Once that data has been collected, analyzed, and compiled for the paper, the authors send it to a journal in hopes of acceptance.
Once these papers are received, three peer reviewers are assigned to the paper, these reviewers being fellow scientists and experts in the field.
After seeing their edits, the researchers must join forces to prepare for resubmittal.
Wolf was jubilant that the edits only called for one set of additional experiments and other general paper edits before submitting.
“It is really exciting to be a part of research that is published,” said Wolf. “The whole point of publishing research is to share your knowledge so that other scientists can learn about what you have done and build off of it or take pieces away that will contribute to another research project.”
To read more about this neurological breakthrough, check out their article in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics.