Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Biology

Second Department

Physics

Reader 1

Sarah Marzen

Reader 2

Hernan Garcia

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

Emily J Dong

Abstract

Conservation of transcriptional bursting, which underlie molecular and cellular decision-making processes, across species make this stochastic process a rich topic of study. However, due to lack of appropriate imaging technology until the past two decades, studies on bursting have primarily surrounded theoretical models and numerical simulations. To experimentally investigate parameters which have been theorized to modulate transcription, including transcription initiation rate, polymerase on-switching rate, and polymerase off-switching rate, MS2-MCP fluorescence imaging can be utilized in live Drosophila embryos (Falo-Sanjuan et. al, 2019). Understanding the relationship between these kinetic parameters and genetic architectures in DNA is important to contextualize regulation of transcription. Here, we utilize modified enhancers that respond to the Notch signaling pathway, a well-known direct signal transduction system, for such exploration. Results demonstrated that a potential relationship between bursting duration via promoter on-switching rate with varied number of enhancer binding sites and cooperativity may exist. Analyzing this relationship provides insight into how signaling is used to drive transcriptional regulation, as well as inform improvements in potential Notch-targeted therapies for cancer patients.

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