Honors Program
Document Type
Thesis
Date of this Version
Spring 3-19-2020
Citation
Regester R. Maxwell. 2020. Membrane Lipid Extraction Methods from Sorghum bicolor. Undergraduate Honors Thesis. University of Nebraska Lincoln.
Abstract
Plants are the basis of the world as we know it. As sessile beings, there are often subject to many environment stressors like drought, extreme temperatures, etc. One way of analyzing how plants respond to these stressors is by monitoring changes in their lipid compositions. Having a better understanding of how plants respond to different stressors can have very important implications when it comes to cultivating crops. When testing lipid composition, it is important to measure levels as they were in the living tissue. The problem is, enzymes known as lipases are active during extraction and can greatly change the lipid composition. We tested three methods for inactivating these lipases and extracting the lipids on Sorghum bicolor leaf tissues. Two of the methods use formic acid in organic solvent for different times, while the second uses boiling isopropanol. To analyze lipase activity, we measured the relative abundance of lipid species formed by lipase activity. In the end, we determined each method is relatively comparable to the other.
Comments
Copyright Max Regester 2020.