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Innovative Approaches In The Discovery Of Aquatic Mycobacteriophages, Janis H. Doss

Biomedical Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Bacteriophages (phages), viruses that infect bacteria, have many applications in medicine, agriculture, molecular biology, and other fields. As antibiotic resistance becomes an increasing problem, interest in phages has grown. The traditional techniques of phage discovery are successful for some phages, but others require modified procedures to achieve detectable host infection.

Mycobacterium is a diverse bacterial genus characterized by a unique cell wall containing mycolic acids, which aids in survival and pathogenesis. The aims of the present research were to isolate mycobacteriophages, use bioinformatics techniques to analyze mycobacterial prophages, and combine genetic analysis with multi-well plate host range studies to identify …

Study Of The Effects Of Silver Ions And Silver Nanoparticles On Embryonic Development, Martha Sharisha Johnson

Biomedical Sciences Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the study of the toxicity of metal nanoparticles (NPs) and their ions on the development of zebrafish embryos, aiming to understand unique biological effects of NPs and ions, and design new in vivo assays to characterize the toxicity of these metal NPs and metal ions. Currently, the underlying molecular mechanisms of biological effects of nanomaterials are partially understood. Some studies assume that the toxic effects of NPs can be attributed to the release of their ions. We investigate the effects of silver NPs (Ag NPs) and silver ions (Ag+ ions) on the embryonic development of zebrafish …