Research Help - (Nov/04/2008 )

i am currently trying to work on my thesis project, and my professor just got back to me and said my idea of comparing CAT gene activity in resistant strains of bacteria cant be done in the time i have.

i am not in trouble as i dont have much time to start a new project. i was wondering if anyon can give me some suggestions or throw some ideas my way that i may be able to use with the drug resistant bacteria i have grown to chloramphenicol. cant find much literature right now because i need to keep it somewhat simple. not too much molecular things.

i was thinking maybe morphology or something but i cant find any articles.
i am not asking for someone to give me a full idea or copy of someone but i just want some ideas to point me in the right direction so i can do all the work myself.
any suggestions or ideas?
thanks

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Not to sound like an A-hole but it seems like you are not in any position to be writing a thesis with no data and no project. Furthermore, why is your professor giving you a time line with no project objective? In order to give you any kind of help you need to specify what the CmR bacteria are and how they were obtained/isolated. One simple thing you could do is determine if the resistance gene is coded for in the chromosome or on a plasmid. Grow your bacteria up in selective media (i.e. with chloramphenicol) and isolate plasmid DNA. You could then use Cm specific primers to try and amplify the CmR gene via PCR. If this is positive you could then try to transform the plasmid into Cm susceptible cells (ex E.coli) and screen for colonies on Cm plates. Take it a step further and send the PCR amplicons from multiple isolates for sequencing and then compare the sequence homology. That's all I can suggest for now. Let me know more about your project . . . .

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