1. Melissa Spear Phillips Lab Mentor: Rose Reynolds SPUR 2011 Evolution of Genetic Networks Controlling Cellular Stress Response and Longevity

2. Aging How do we age? -Damage to cells Why should we care? -Age related diseases -Ways to put off? What is aging?

3. The Stress Theory What is stress? The oxidative stress theory of aging  Harman (1956) Free radicals Does all evidence support this theory?  Huang (2000)  Van Remmen (2003) Cellular stress response determines the rate of aging

4. Investigation 1. Create a stress resistant population 2. Are there changes in longevity response? 3. Are there changes in the genetic networks that control stress response?

5. C. remanei as a Model Organism Similar to C. elegans Controlled environment Ability to freeze Larger genome Greater genetic variation

6. Stress Selection Acute Heat Acute Oxidative No Acute Stress 321 321 321 Control Chronic StressAcute StressBlocks *Also tested ancestor population

7. Progress

8. Testing for Genetic Expression Total RNA extraction mRNA purification mRNA Total RNA

9. Testing for Genetic Expression Synthesized single and double stranded DNA Library Creation

10. RNA Seq What is it?  High through-put DNA sequencing method that maps and quantifies transcriptomes Benefits  Expression of different alleles of a gene  Detect post- transcriptional modifications  Identify gene fusions

11. RNA Seq Processing Samples Illumina Data

12. RNA Seq Results Figure 1

13. Examples of RNA Seq Results Stress SelectedControl

14. Future Directions Determine responsible pathways Genetically engineer worms

15. Acknowledgements Rose Reynolds Kristin Sikkink Patrick Phillips Phillips Lab Cresko Lab SPUR Program