Renaissance School

We began our research by looking into how epigenetic factors and methylation affect the brain in depression. Epigenetics is how the environment affects our genome. Methylation is one type of epigenetic factor, where a CH3 group is added onto a gene. Methylation silences a gene or stops expression of that gene. We began looking into specific areas where genes were methylated in depression. During this research, we realized that we needed to find a way to "read" methylation in the genome.

The most common way of analyzing DNA is through PCR. A PCR machine will amplify a piece of DNA, by creating thousands of copies of that piece of DNA. The length of the DNA can then be read after PCR by using a process called electrophoresis. In PCR, an enzyme called a polymerase is used to make the copies of DNA. The most common polymerase used is the Taq polymerase and Taq won't preserve methylation of DNA during PCR. 

This led us to look for polymerases that would preserve methylation. In researching this, we came across a previous iGEM team that had also been researching preserving methylation in PCR. Team Heidelberg 2014 designed PCR 2.0, a polymerase that would preserve methylation. The only problem is that PCR is done at high temperatures to denature or "unzip" DNA. PCR 2.0 would fall apart at these high temperatures. We intend to continue research into creating a polymerase that will preserve methylation.