Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Project

Although a draft of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii genome was recently published (Science, 2007) annotations of most of its protein coding genes have not been experimentally verified. Furthermore, a comprehensive metabolic map has not been generated for this organism. In this Department of Energy GTL funded project, we are: i) experimentally verifying transcript structures of ~2,000 metabolically related genes and cloning their open reading frames (ORF); ii) identifying protein-protein interactions among the metabolic gene products; and iii) building protein interaction maps and metabolic networks.

The obtained interactome data will be used to build a more complete model of the metabolic circuitry of this organism. The generation of a metabolic network will in turn help validate examined genes by defining a biological role for them. Our iterative approach of integrating experimental data with model-building enables us to refine genome annotations and metabolic network maps progressively. We are currently in the process of completing the first of such cycles.

This work is being carried out jointly in the Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB) at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and in the laboratory of Dr. Jason Papin in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia.