1. What Makes the “Blue” in Blueberries? -The Truth about Myb Dylan Coughtrey Laboratory Methods in Genomics Spring 2011

2. What is Myb? Acronym taken from myeloblastosis First recognized as an oncogene in avian myeloblastosis virus Currently being studied to further identify genetic factors in cancer patients

3. What does it do? Myb transcription factors regulate gene expresion by binding directly to DNA Localizes to recently replicated DNA in mitotically cycling and endocycling cells Absence of Myb has been shown to cause increases in: Mitotic arrest Abnormal chromosome number Faulty spindle formation

4. http://www.stanford.edu/group/lipsick/whatsmyb%20short.htm

5. What does it do? Myb factors regulate production of anthocyanins Change with pH (give the fruit its blue color) Potentially great health benefits, positive effects against: Cancer Aging and neurological diseases Inflammation Diabetes Bacterial infection

6. Protein Structure Myb proteins are defined by the Myb Domain Sequence of approximately 50 amino acids Can be repeated up to three times Repeat domains are imperfect, but highly conserved The Myb Domain allow the protein to bind to DNA and regulate transcription

7. My Progress Blasted for known Myb nucleotide sequences from Vitis vinifera (grape) and Arabidopsis thaliana Found nothing Knew that there had to be Myb factors in blueberry Found my miracle paper: Analysis of the grape MYB R2R3 subfamily reveals expanded wine quality-related clades and conserved gene structure organization across Vitis and Arabidopsis genomes José Tomás Matus, Felipe Aquea, and Patricio Arce-Johnson

9. Finally Found! BLASTed consensus sequence using tblastn Searches for amino acid sequences in genomic DNA Found 29 potential Myb genes in the Illumina data Contained various portions of the conserved sequence Some fully conserved and others only partially conserved

10. Further Steps Identifying gene structure of Mybs in blueberry Determine patterns in chromosomal arrangement of Myb genes Compare each of these to that of closely related plants Examine various Myb genes in the genome to determine significant differences that could affect function

11. Works Consulted http://www.stanford.edu/group/lipsick/whatsmyb%20long.htm http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2007/05/26/pcp.pcm0 66.short http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2007/05/26/pcp.pcm0 66.short http://www.stanford.edu/group/lipsick/pdf/Dubendorff%20and%20 Lipsick%20Oncogene%201999.pdf http://www.stanford.edu/group/lipsick/pdf/Dubendorff%20and%20 Lipsick%20Oncogene%201999.pdf http://www.gentcare.com/EnProductShow.asp?ID=52 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/osu- sfn030507.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/osu- sfn030507.php http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2507771/?tool=pub med http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2507771/?tool=pub med