Mohan Karthik Mohan

Personal Data:
Country of Origin: India
Start of PhD: April 2009
Institution: FSU

PhD Project:
An insertional mutagenesis approach to understand temperature entrainment of the circadian clock in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Supervisor(s): M. Mittag (FSU), E. Kothe (FSU)

Abstract:
The entrainment of circadian clocks to a period of 24 hours relies on environmental cues like light-dark and temperature cycles. It was found recently in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that some clock relevant proteins such as the C1 and C3 subunits of the RNA-binding protein CHLAMY1 can integrate temperature information within in the physiological range of this alga (18°C to 28°C). Thus, the expression level of the C3 subunit is high at 18°C and low at 28°C. It was shown that the up-regulation at low temperature occurs at the transcriptional level and that it involves predominantly an E-box that is situated in the c3 promoter.
This work aims to examine the temperature controlled mechanisms of the molecular clock network by identifying and functionally characterizing some of the factor(s) that are involved in the up-regulation of c3 by an insertional mutagenesis approach using a chimeric luciferase reporter construct that is under control of the c3 promoter as reporter.