Protein Electrophoresis Disagrees with Phylogenic Relationships in 5 Species of Fish
             Proteins are involved in nearly all aspects of life in eukaryotes, from structural support, to signaling within an organism, and everything in between (Campbell & Reece, 2002). Proteins originate in DNA in the form of nucleotide sequences, so testing proteins is another way of testing the genetic structure of organisms. Also, proteins are abundant in all animals, which make them excellent sources of data. We believe that different animals will contain different proteins within their muscles, but will have some similarities depending on how closely related the two animals are. These similarities allowed us to compare proteins in five species of fish-salmon, sturgeon, smelt, catfish, and trout. From the similarities in proteins, we derived the evolutionary relationships between these animals. These relationships are summarized in a graphical representation called a phylogeny. Phylogenies are designed to show evolutionary relationships based on molecular and/or morphological properties. The phylogeny on the next page was contained in the lab manual (Landel & McFarland, 2004). This phylogeny was the basis for our experiment, so we will refer to it throughout this paper.
             Organisms analyzed are enclosed in:
             The methods used for this lab were found in Landel and McFarland (2004) and Bio-Rad (2000). The Mini-Protean 3 gel box was assembled and filled with 1x TGS electrophoresis buffer. Five 1.5 ml flip-top micro tubes were obtained and labeled. 250 μl of Bio-Rad Laemmli sample buffer was added to each labeled flip-top micro tube. Bio-Rad Laemmli sample buffer was consisting of Tris buffer, SDS, glycerol, and bromphenol blue dye. Tris buffer provided appropriate pH. SDS dissolved proteins and gave a negative charge. Glycerol made samples sink into wells. Bromphenol blue dye visualized samples. Also, five screw-cap micro tubes ...