Name and Surname of the Supervisor: Jorūnė Sakalauskaitė
Institution (Company), Department: Institute of Biosciences, Department of Zoology
Preliminary Topic: Shell biochromes: isolation & characterization of biological pigments involved in biomineralization
Short Description of the Internship Work: Molluscan shells have an incredible diversity of colours and patterns which encode important biological information. Shell biochromes may play a role in immunity, shell strengthening, protection from thermal stress and UV radiation. However, their role in biomineralization and evolutionary pathway is poorly studied and unknown. This is largely due to the fact that shell pigments are hard to extract and are rarely studied using molecular techniques. In particular, little is known about chromoprotein sequences (proteins associated with colour) and what is their role in shell mineralization.
As part of this internship, you will work to isolate, analyse and characterise biogenic pigments and associated proteins from one or several different molluscan models (e.g., Littorina, Mytilus). You will carry out extraction of shell organic matrices and test several different techniques to isolate pigment bound biomolecules (there is room for method development!). Biochromes will be analysed by Raman, HPLC and HPLC-MS/MS. Our aim will be to identify shell chromoproteins involved in biomineralization.
This internship project will be part of larger project CACAO (Shell ColourBiome: molecular archives for biomineralization, evolution and archaeology). It is an interdisciplinary project that targets open minded and active students interested in addressing fundamental biological questions using molecular approaches. Working languages: Lithuanian, English
Qualification Requirements (Degree): BSc, MSc, MSc completed
Application Deadline: 2023-11-30