Sav's Sourdough Starters

A couple of blogs that I am subscribed to include Hannah Prescott and Sydney Joyner's blogs, which are titled "Sourpuss Sourdough" and "Let's Get This Bread." This week I have reviewed the research questions they have proposed that they would like to answer with the data we receive from this semester's starters. I also reevaluated my own potential research questions this week to determine what I would like to ask about our data.  Sourpuss Sourdough - Hannah Prescott Hannah asked the following questions:  1. Is there a connection between the type of fruit and the type of microbes found in the starters?  2. Do certain microbes display a particular phenotypic smell in the starters, and does this smell change or become more strong or weak in relative abundance?  3. Did the environment the starters were grown in impact all of the starters as far as which microbes were present?  Summary : I think Hannah has asked some great questions! Hannah's third quest

During the last two weeks, students have been  submitting  samples of  their sourdough starters  for DNA sequencing.  We will be getting data  and  results back soon, but for now, we will be  practicing  DNA analysis using data from last  semester's  sourdough starters.  What are we sequencing?  The purpose of this research project is to determine the exact sequences of nucleotides within the sourdough starters to figure out which microorganisms are present. We will be sequencing a few very specific genes or regions within a genome of  many different organisms. There are two genes that we will be sequencing for this set of sourdough starter samples; the 16S rRNA gene, which is present in bacteria and the ITS region, which is present in eukaryotic organisms such as fungi.  Shotgun vs Amplicon-based Metagenomic Sequencing We discussed two ways that we could sequence our sourdough starter samples, each having their own pros and cons. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing involves sequencing

The Beginning of The End The last update on my starters consisted of observations from February 8th to February 18th.  There was very little progress to share during that time. On February 19th, however, my original control starter began to rise. It was rising pretty consistently for a couple of days, but then it seemed to show less bubbles and growth each day. Its health declined rapidly which led me to dispose of all four starters since I did not have any viable samples to submit for sequencing. Below I have attached images from February 19th and 20th, the days my original control starter showed the most growth.  The two images above are both of my original starters on  February 19th , taken around 9:30 am. At this point, I had been feeding my original starters and newer starters differently. My original starters were being refreshed each day by having 1 TBSP of old mixture taken out and then adding 1 TBSP of water and 4.5 TSP of flour. For the newer starters, I was removing 1 TBSP o