BLNK is an adaptor protein that functions in B-cell receptor signalling, and is vitally necessary at signalling checkpoints of mammalian B-cell development. However, its importance to avian B-cell development remains unclear. To explore the function of BLNK in chickens, shRNA-mediated RNA interference was delivered to a chicken B-cell line in vitro by replication-competent avian retrovirus (RCAS), and effective shRNA were determined. To observe an shRNA phenotype on chicken B-cell development, we simultaneously explored whether RCAS penetrance was correlated between red blood cells (RBC) and bursal B-cells by infecting chicken embryos with RCAS expressing a fluorescent tag. We found that RCAS penetrance was correlated between RBC and B-cells, which provides a system to observe any in vivo effects of BLNK shRNA on B-cell development. Furthermore, this system for observing BLNK function may be complemented by genetically-modified BLNK, particularly variants resistant to RNA interference.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/43087 |
| Date | 04 December 2013 |
| Creators | Ling, Alexanda Ka-Shing |
| Contributors | Ratcliffe, Michael |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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