Lily Pitts

Author: Lily Pitts | Major: Biology | Semester: Spring 2024

Hello! My name is Lily Pitts, and I am a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas. During my last two years of study, I worked with Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and Carson Stacy to investigate the osmotic specificity of the high osmolarity glycerol (HOG) map kinase pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The HOG pathway is conserved from yeast to humans but is thought to have a slightly different role in yeast. The current understanding suggests that the HOG pathway serves as a general stress response pathway in humans, but that it serves solely as an osmotic stress response pathway in yeast. However, the current specificity data surrounding the HOG pathway is derived from the testing of a small number of laboratory strains of yeast. This osmotic specificity is challenged when examining the role of the HOG pathway in wild yeast strains, where the HOG pathway appears to mediate a general stress response.

To investigate the different roles of the HOG pathway in various yeast strains, I compared global gene expression differences in different wild yeast strains that lacked a functional HOG pathway compared to a wild-type control as cells responded to different diverse stresses. To examine these differences, I needed to analyze a large volume of RNA sequencing data. I had never done any coding or statistical analysis work prior to beginning my project, but with the generous support of the Honors College, I was able to purchase coding courses and books that allowed me to jumpstart my learning and begin my analysis.

Ultimately, I found that there was a significant difference in the role of the HOG pathway when comparing wild strains of yeast to the laboratory strain. This finding is important because it allows us to better understand the evolutionary background of stress responses. Additionally, proving that the current dogma surrounding the HOG pathway’s specificity to osmotic stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is at least partially incorrect and based on an outlier lab strain highlights the power of wild strains for generating a more complete view of species-level biology.

I intend to continue performing research throughout the remainder of my schooling and in my career. Now that I have finished my undergraduate degree, I will be taking a gap year to finish up my medical school applications and continue my work as a pharmacy technician. Completing research was extremely beneficial to my college experience, allowing me to deepen my understanding of both core and elective classes. Throughout the course of my research, I found that I began to better understand courses I had taken previously. Research perfectly complemented my coursework by forcing me to take a closer look at various concepts and how they connect. I often found myself combining ideas from evolutionary biology, cell biology, biochemistry, statistics, and genetics to understand the results of my analyses.

Conducting research also allowed me to develop more subtle skills like problem solving and persistence. I hit many roadblocks and snags during my research, but through lots of rechecking code and long discussions with my research mentor, I gradually began to understand the “story” the data was telling. With this steady progress, I finally gained the ability to shift what had originally seemed like a jumbled jigsaw puzzle of near-random pieces of data into a clear picture.