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Linking Bacterioplankton Community Structures To Environmental State Variables And Phytoplankton Assemblages In Two South Carolina Salt Marsh Estuaries, Wes Johnson, Alan J. Lewitus, Madilyn Fletcher

Faculty Publications

Microorganisms are among the most important organisms to the ecology of salt marsh estuaries; however, fundamental questions regarding their distribution, environmental controls, and interactions with phytoplankton remain unanswered. We used denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of bacterial rRNA genes and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) of phytoplankton photopigments to characterize planktonic communities from the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto (ACE) Basin and North Inlet (NI) estuaries on the South Carolina coast, USA. Multivariate comparisons of the planktonic community profiles revealed that the 2 estuaries supported distinct bacterial communities. Furthermore, bacterial communities in both systems were partitioned into separate particle-associated (PA) and …

Chironomid Hemoglobin Genetic Diversity As An Indicator Of The New Jersey Hackensack Meadowlands Wetland Health, Lene Marie De Coursin Jacobs

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Kearny Marsh located within the Hackensack Meadowlands is a freshwater wetland impacted by multiple environmental stressors from human activity. The marsh is located in the northeastern New Jersey metropolitan area. Chironomid larvae, aquatic larvae of midge fly, were analyzed from two Kearny Marsh sample sites, W9 and W22. A previous sediment analysis and toxicity study characterized heavy metal contaminants the marsh. The data results were applied in this thesis study to determine the correlation between environmental stressors and chironomid genetic diversity. Site W9 sediment was impacted by severe levels of total heavy metal contamination, whereas site W22 had just below …

Ecological Fitting As A Determinant Of The Community Structure Of Platyhelminth Parasites Of Anurans, Daniel R. Brooks, Virginia León-Règagnon, Deborah Mclennan, Derek Zelmer

Faculty Publications

Host–parasite associations are assumed to be ecologically specialized, tightly coevolved systems driven by mutual modification in which host switching is a rare phenomenon. Ecological fitting, however, increases the probability of host switching, creating incongruences between host and parasite phylogenies, when (1) specialization on a particular host resource is a shared characteristic of distantly related parasites, and (2) the resource being tracked by the parasite is widespread among many host species. We investigated the effect of ecological fitting on structuring the platyhelminth communities of anurans from a temperate forest and grassland in the United States and tropical dry and wet forests …

In Vitro Expression And Purification Of Class I Mhc Molecules, Loi Cheng

Honors Scholar Theses

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a gene family responsible for many critical functions of the immune system in most vertebrates. The MHC consists of three classes differentiated by their structure and function, and MHC class I encodes antigen binding proteins as well as chaperone and accessory proteins such as tapasin. The purpose of this project is to reconstitute several human MHC class I molecules in their peptide-filled and peptide-deficient forms, and to purify these proteins for biochemical study. The expressed proteins include wild type and mutant variants of the fusion protein human leukocyte antigen HLA-B*0801-fos, and human beta-2-microglobulin (β2m). …

Biolojam – The Educational Comic, Stacey Barrie

Senior Honors Projects

BioloJam is a biology comic aimed towards 7th and 8th grade students. The goal of the project was to create an educational resource that students would find entertaining and enlightening. The project is available on the web and is free to use for educational purposes by teachers, students, and parents. There are two comics: the larger, more complicated “Cell Breakout” and the smaller, more conversational “Giraffic Park.” In Cell Breakout, the three heroes are trapped inside a video game in a plant cell, and learn all about cell functions as they try to escape. In Giraffic Park, the trio are …

Psd-Project Sequence Database, Matthew Kayala, Akhila Kambhampati, Stephanie Forschner, Bethany D. Jenkins

Bioinformatics Software Design Projects

1. Introduction

The sequencing of nucleic acids and the subsequent analysis of their encoded the genes and proteins has revolutionized biological sciences and allowed for the determination of evolutionary origins and biochemical potential of organisms. While the technology to determine molecular sequence data has become extremely powerful in terms of both automation and thoughput, sequence analysis technology has lagged behind, unable to efficiently keep up with the vast amount of sequence data being generated both in individual labs and by researchers worldwide. The foundation of robust sequence analysis is dependent on the building and maintaining of project sequence databases (PSD) …

Dolomedes Scriptus (Water Spider): Male Response To Females’ Putative Pheromones On Perches., Katherine Hunt

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Sexual signals are commonly used among animals to enhance reproductive success. Chemical signals such as pheromones are commonly used to attract mates. Little is known, though, about how these signals are received or interpreted by the target. I studied the water spider, Dolomedes scriptus in the pisaurid family. Most Dolomedes species only make webs as a nursery for their young. However, females often create silk drag lines, potentially serving for species recognition. In some Dolomedes species, females who are previously mated are known to cannibalize most approaching males. Males might avoid cannibalism by avoiding mated females, particularly if they can …

Abstracts Of Papers, 84th Annual Meeting Of The Virginia Academy Of Science

Virginia Journal of Science

Full abstracts of papers for the 84th Annual Meeting of the Virginia Academy of Science, May 25-26, 2006, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA

Plasmid Probes For Screening Specific Genes In Large Fragment Dna Libraries, Leah Ferguson

Senior Honors Projects

Heliothis virescens, a member of the lepidopteran family, is of great importance to many people who rely on agriculture as a source of income because it is a pest of many important crops. Because H. virescens feeds on a broad array of hosts including cotton, tobacco, tomato, and soybean it has earned its place as a major nuisance in the United States. Heliothis subflexa is a close taxonomic relative of H. virescens, but the two species differ in that H. subflexa is a specialized herbivore that only feeds on plants in the genus Physalis. Studies have been performed to determine …

Regulation Of Cytoplasmic Dynein Atpase By Lis1, Mariano T. Mesngon, Cataldo Tarricone, Sachin Hebbar, Aimee Guillotte, E. William Schmitt, Lorene Lanier, Andrea Musacchio, Stephen J. King, Deanna S. Smith

Faculty Publications

Mutations in Lis1 cause classical lissencephaly, a developmental brain abnormality characterized by defects in neuronal positioning.Over the last decade, a clear link has been forged between Lis1 and the microtubule motor cytoplasmic dynein. Substantial evidenceindicates that Lis1 functions in a highly conserved pathway with dynein to regulate neuronal migration and other motile events. Yeasttwo-hybrid studies predict that Lis1 binds directly to dynein heavy chains (Sasaki et al., 2000; Tai et al., 2002), but the mechanistic significance of this interaction is not well understood. We now report that recombinant Lis1 binds to native brain dynein and significantly increases the microtubule-stimulated enzymatic …

Identifying Exclusion Genes Of Bacteriophage Hk239, Ali Wright

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Temperate bacteriophage can adopt either a lytic or a lysogenic lifestyle. In the lytic lifestyle, the bacteriophage infects a cell, uses the host's cellular machinery to replicate, and lyses the cell to release the phage progeny. In the lysogenic lifestyle the bacteriophage genome is integrated into the bacterial genome to generate a prophage. Most of the genes of the prophage are repressed. However, those genes that are expressed have a wide variety of functions including exclusion, the prevention of phage infection. Lysogens of bacteriophage HK239 have the ability to exclude a wide variety of phage, including (lambda), T4rII, Plvir, P2, …

A Novel Approach To Phylogenetic Tree Construction Using Stochastic Optimization And Clustering, Ling Qin, Yixin Chen, Yi Pan, Ling Chen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Background: The problem of inferring the evolutionary history and constructing the phylogenetic tree with high performance has become one of the major problems in computational biology.

Results: A new phylogenetic tree construction method from a given set of objects (proteins, species, etc.) is presented. As an extension of ant colony optimization, this method proposes an adaptive phylogenetic clustering algorithm based on a digraph to find a tree structure that defines the ancestral relationships among the given objects.

Conclusion: Our phylogenetic tree construction method is tested to compare its results with that of the genetic algorithm (GA). Experimental results show that …

Use Of Lolium Multiflorum For Remediation Of Phosphorus From Poultry-Litter-Contaminated Media, Daniel L Starnes

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Establishment Of Polarity During Organization Of The Acentrosomal Plant Cortical Microtubule Array, Ram Dixit, Eric Chang, Richard Cyr

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

The plant cortical microtubule array is a unique acentrosomal array that is essential for plant morphogenesis. To understand how this array is organized, we exploited the microtubule (+)-end tracking activity of two Arabidopsis EB1 proteins in combination with FRAP (fluorescence recovery after photobleaching) experiments of GFP-tubulin to examine the relationship between cortical microtubule array organization and polarity. Significantly, our observations show that the majority of cortical microtubules in ordered arrays, within a particular cell, face the same direction in both Arabidopsis plants and cultured tobacco cells. We determined that this polar microtubule coalignment is at least partially due to a …

Contribution To The Taxonomical And Biological Characteristics Of Sciurus Anomalus In Turkey (Mammalia: Rodentia), İrfan Albayrak, Ati̇lla Arslan

Turkish Journal of Zoology

This study is based on 62 Sciurus anomalus specimens obtained from Konya, Karaman, Kütahya and Çorum provinces between 1997 and 2002. Some ecological and biological features of the species, including habitat, nest-sites, fur colour, baculum and phallus were investigated. In this species, the chromosome number (2n) is 40. For the taxonomical evaluation of Sciurus anomalus, morphometric data of the specimens were used. The specimens were discussed at the subspecies level, comparing to the relevant literature, and it was concluded that our specimens represent the nominate form.