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Life Sciences

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Theses/Dissertations

2014

Photochemistry

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Novel Strategies To Modulate Synaptic Communication And Investigate The Role Of Hdac6 In Alzheimer’S Disease, Kathryne A. Medeiros Aug 2014

Novel Strategies To Modulate Synaptic Communication And Investigate The Role Of Hdac6 In Alzheimer’S Disease, Kathryne A. Medeiros

Doctoral Dissertations

Neuronal communication is mediated by chemical signaling at the synapse. The underlying molecular mechanisms of learning and memory are poorly understood. Very few tools are available to study how memories are formed in the mammalian brain. This dissertation focuses on developing novel strategies to study neural activity. Here we develop and use a chemical-genetic approach to enable target-specific photocontrol of inhibitory synaptic neurotransmission of GABAA receptor subtypes. The tools developed here selectively photocontrolled GABAA receptor subtypes. This enabled the investigation of the functional role these receptor subtypes have in inhibitory synaptic neurotransmission. This dissertation also focuses on identifying …


Reactive Probes For Manipulating Polyketide Synthases, And Photoreactive Probes For Strained Alkyne Click Chemistry, Jon William Amoroso Apr 2014

Reactive Probes For Manipulating Polyketide Synthases, And Photoreactive Probes For Strained Alkyne Click Chemistry, Jon William Amoroso

Doctoral Dissertations

Polyketides are a broad class of natural products that have received attention from the scientific community because they are a rich mine of bioactive structures. The common thread that binds the class together is the method by which they are synthesized, by large enzymatic complexes called polyketide synthases (PKSs) which display assembly line like organization. A great deal of effort has been put into studying PKSs, but their mechanistic steps are still not perfectly understood. In order to further the study of PKSs and their components, we have developed a series of reactive small molecules that covalently modify specific sites …