Ka Ying Lee

• Bsc (Hons) Biomedical Sciences
• How do mitochondrial ribosomal proteins control apoptosis?

DAP3 is a mitochondrial ribosomal protein that has been characterised as playing a role in apoptosis. To determine if the amount of DAP3 in the cytosol is a trigger for apoptosis the project will generate a cell line where DAP3 is targeted to the cytosol and not to the mitochondrion. Western blotting was used to analyse the level of DAP3 and localisation of cyto-DAP3 was done by subcellular fractionatio. Cell morphology and growth rates was compared between induced and uninduced cells using Incucyte machine. The findings showed that the localisation of DAP3 to the cytosol of cell does not trigger apoptosis in normal condition.

Project Supervisor: Prof Robert Lightowlers, Institute for Cell & Molecular Biosciences

Funding source: Newcastle University