2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

6 Evaluation

Weakness

Effect on result

Improvements

This investigation mainly covered the specificity and known function of the transcription factors obtained from bioinformatic databases, however, there may be other factors that effects the suitability of choosing one candidate factor other another, such as the degree of mutation upon the deletion of the gene in the target cell type and which factors are more critical in activating cardiac gene expression. Due to the limitations in the research method, the specificity of a combination of transcription factors cannot be determined. However, sometimes, a combination of transcription factors that otherwise have low specificity individually can be a more suitable choice. Amazonia!, the microarray database used in this investigation lack data for some of the selected transcription factors. A typical data result page for a transcription factor should contain 2 different sets of microarray data: ‘Human body index’ and ‘Embryonic and adult normal tissues’. However, for some factors, only the ‘Human body index’ graph is present.

There is a chance that the combination of transcription factors determined in this study may not display the properties predicted due to the lack of lab testing.

More in-depth research and lab testings may be required in order to obtain a more reliable conclusion. Techniques such as reporter- based fluorescence-activated cell sorting can be used to identify mature cardiomyocytes and use them for experiments on the factor combinations. Then, by individually removing factors from the pool of 14, which factors are dispensable can be determined. Finding the specificity of a combination of factors can only be achieved when testing with live target tissue type in a laboratory. The method includes selecting a combination of transcription factors and delete them from a group of cells. If the cellular processes do not seem altered, then the group can be deemed dispensable. A peer-reviewed, respiratory that adheres more to academic or industry standards can be utilised. The Gene Expression Omnibus by NCBI is an example of this kind. Compared to Amazonia!, more reliable and complete data can be obtained.

There may potentially be a more suitable combination of factors that are both highly specific individually and also as a group. The research method in this investigation neglected ways to find combination specificity. As the result for the specificity of a factor counts the number of other tissue types that expresses similar or higher levels of the factor in both graphs, factors with only one graph present will have a lower count for that result compared to factors with a full two-graph data.

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