Syllabus
Practical tasks :
1. Detection of the cytoskeleton in cultured plant cells (immunofluorescence microscopy, Western blot)
2. Expression and affinity purification of a bacterially expressed plant protein.
3. Transient expression of a GFP-tagged protein using the tobacco leaf infiltration method.
4. Transient expression of a gene introduced into tobacco protoplasts (and detection of a GFP-tagged gene product).
5. Arabidopsis transformation (in situ infiltration by Agrobacterium, transgene selection).
6. Detection of inducible gene expression in plant cells using the reporter gene approach.
7. Transgenic plant detection using PCR.
8. In silico cloning and mutagenesis - introduction into basic bioinformatic tools.
Annotation
The course includes practical examples and theoretical background of a selection of modern methods of plant cell and molecular biology, in particular the techniques employed to study gene expression in plant material, transient expression of introduced genes in plant cells and protoplasts, and construction and analysis of transgenic plants.
The course is intended mainly for Masters and PhD students whose experimental interests include some of the methods taught.