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Insights Into Halophilic Microbial Adaptation: Analysis Of Integrons And Associated Genomic Structures And Characterization Of A Nitrilase In Hypersaline Environments, Sarah Sonbol

Theses and Dissertations

Hypersaline environments are extreme habitats that can be exploited as biotechnological resources. Here, we characterized a nitrilase (NitraS-ATII) isolated from Atlantis II Deep brine pool. It showed higher thermal stability and heavy metal tolerance compared to a closely related nitrilase.

We also studied integrons in halophiles and hypersaline environments. Integrons are genetic platforms in which an integron integrase (IntI) mediates the excision and integration of gene cassettes at specific recombination sites. In order to search for integrons in halophiles and hypersaline metagenomes, we used a PCR-based approach, in addition to different bioinformatics tools, mainly IntegronFinder.

We found that integrons and …

Deep Learning For Multi-Tissue Cancer Classification Of Gene Expressions, Tarek Khorshed

Theses and Dissertations

We contribute in saving the lives of cancer patients through early detection and diagnosis, since one of the major challenges in cancer treatment is that patients are diagnosed at very late stages when appropriate medical interventions become less effective and full curative treatment is no longer achievable. Cancer classification using gene expressions is extremely challenging given the complexity and high dimensionality of the data. Current classification methods typically rely on samples collected from a single tissue type and perform a prerequisite of gene feature selection to avoid processing the full set of genes. These methods fall short in taking advantage …

Mining Selected Metagenomes/Metatranscriptomes For Biosynthetic Gene Clusters And Antimicrobial Resistance Genes, Ahmed Yamany

Theses and Dissertations

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the serious global challenges in the current century. The fact that resistance genes transfer between bacteria, coupled with the fact that the world is connected through complex dynamics. Studying microbial behavior and understanding the different factors coffering microbial resistance to a broad spectrum of the available drug classes, parallel with a comprehensive analysis of the natural microbial products as the primary source of the novel antibiotics, might shed some light on solutions for this problem. Microbial environments harbor a wide range of secondary metabolites (SM) with different functional groups. SMs are not directly involved in …