Date of Award

12-2010

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Linda S. Huang

Second Advisor

Alexey Veraksa

Third Advisor

Rachel Skvirsky

Abstract

This work addresses the question of how morphological changes are regulated and how cell polarity and morphology are established. The work in this thesis examines the intracellular changes that occur during spore morphogenesis in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae, and focuses on the function of the gene SPO71. SPO71 is essential for spore morphogenesis and encodes a protein with two pleckstrin homology domains. SPO71 is conserved among fungi, as homologs are present in the closely related Saccharomyces species as well as more distantly related fungi. I find the prospore membrane in spo71 cells to be deficient in size compared to SPO71 prospore membranes. Structure function analysis demonstrates that the second pleckstrin homology domain is required for SPO71 function.

Comments

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