Genetic look at a colour polymorphism found in lake malawi cichlid fish

[Mzebra]

Hi,

 

I am very new to forums, so apologies if I frustrate anyone.

 

 

I am really just looking for general help I suppose.

 

As the title suggests I am currently carrying out a project (as part of an MRes) that is looking to identify a promoter region of the Pax7 gene in the cichlid fish Metriaclima zebra.

The reason for this is that Pax7 in certain cichlid fish is thought to be responsible to some degree for a colour polymorphism (orange-blotch).

Although Pax7 does not show phenotype associated sequence differences it is thought a promoter region upstream might.

 

I am hoping to find a candidate region through bioinformatics (an area I am totally unfamiliar with - as my last piece of work was a behavioral based study) which I will then look at more closely by designing the appropriate primers etc etc (again I'm really quite uncomfortable with molecular biology)

 

 

 

I know this is all a bit vague (and probably tedious to read) - but any help would be greatly appreciated, especially in regards to bioinformatic tools etc.. or even questions for me to answer on my project would be great, as this will help me too.