A tour to Desert Botanical Garden

On Friday, April 12th, the S-STEM Scholars with our mentors Matt, Josh and Dijana led by John Schampel, a Biosciences Department faculty member went to the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG) for a tour. We left the the Biosciences Department around 12:30 pm and arrived there around 1:15 pm. Once there, we got our admission tickets which was paid by the S-STEM and started a quick tour to one side of the garden while waiting for a presentation at 2:00 pm given by Dr. Kim McCue, Interim Director of Research at Desert Botanical Garden. She gave us an overview of all the different types of research that are going on at the Desert Botanical Garden and also talked to us about the research and internships opportunities that are available there.
After that, we continued our tour to rest of garden. During the tour, we saw different types of plants that grow in a desert.

We also took a tour to the Butterfly Exhibit where we got to see various types of butterflies. They were very cool.

 While we were touring this beautiful garden, there was a plant that I saw more than once that capture my attention. This plant was Opuntia sulphurea aka Pricklypear.

Pricklypear also known as nopales or paddle cactus belongs to the kingdom of Plantae, the order of Caryophyllales and the family of Cactaceae. It is the only genus in the cactus family.
Pricklypear are native only to the Western Hemisphere. They were first introduced to Australia in 1788 and then to the rest of the globe later. Pricklypear species are found in abundance in Mexico and in the Mediterranean region of Northern Africa especially in Tunisia. They are found in the Sonoran Desert located 25.3 degrees to 33 degrees North and 105 degrees to 118 degrees West. Pricklypear typically grow with flat rounded cladodes that armed with two kinds of spines. Most of the species are cold tolerant in general extending then into western and southern Canada. They produce a fruit that is commonly eaten in Mexico.
They are many adaptations that they Pricklypear has to the Sonoran Desert. They reduced their leaves to spines to reduce water loss and also to protect the cactus. Their roots are also made for very dry environment to help adapt to the deserts hot weather. Usually plants in the desert do not require much water or they need a way to store it for a drought. For the case of Pricklypears, they used thier pads to store water and then used it when they need in a drought.

 

Another conference

I came to lab last Friday and I was told by Matt that by Matt that we have to go to another conference at Estrella Mountain Community College. So, we need to submit an abstract and it was due on the Monday following the Friday he was talking to me. The good thing for is that I don't have to write a whole new abstract but I just need to add and modify the old abstract that I already have. This is because I am continuing the second part of my project which consist of extracting the DNA from the bacteria I used in the first part of my experiment and sequence the DNA to have a sequence of the base pairs and then be able to compare these sequences to find which bacteria is related to which one. So, this was my task in the lab this whole week.
Due to many reasons and the short time I have ahead of me before the conference, I can not be able to do the actual DNA extraction from the bacteria and send them to a place for sequencing. But thanks to my judge from the ASU conference who showed a website where I can get the 16S rRNA for most of my bacteria and also he showed another software that I can used to build the phylogenetic tree. So, I spent the whole trying to find the 16S sequence of the 15 species of bacteria that I am using. I used the NCBI website to find these sequences and I searched for the FASTA format of these sequences.
After several hours of research and after being very consistent, I found the 16S rRNA sequences for 12 bacteria out of the 15. The bacteria sequences that I was able to find are: Salmonella, Bacillus subtilis, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterobacter aerogenes, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphilococcus aureus, Micrococcus luteus, Providentia stuartii, Serratia marcescens, Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus salivarius. The three that I could not find are a consistent sequence for are: Pseudomonas mirabillis, Staphilococcus epidermis, Proteus vulgaris.
Honestly, I found it very awesome that we can we have access to those sequences online by simple clicks. It really helps save times during your research.
For the ones that I could find a sequence for, I asked my mentor Matt to give the opportunity to do the actual DNA extraction and sequencing of these bacteria. So, now I am looking for primers for these bacteria and he is going to place an order of these primers and then I can be able to start. The sequencing part is not to be done here in lab because we do not have a proper equipment so after DNA extraction and PCR, we will it to a company for sequencing. I am very excited to do such experiment and be able to find the sequences of the 16S rRNA of these bacteria.
Below is the screenshot of the 16S sequences for Salmonella from NCBI website. Just to give you guys an idea of what the 16S looks like and how to find it.