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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Single-Fluorophore Sensors For Mechanical Force In Living Cells, Sarah Kricheff Dec 2020

Single-Fluorophore Sensors For Mechanical Force In Living Cells, Sarah Kricheff

Honors Scholar Theses

Mechanotransduction is the process by which a mechanical stimulus is converted to a cellular signal. This process is heavily influential of cell morphology, differentiation, and behavior. However, altered levels of mechanical stimuli are also found in many pathological contexts. For example, cancerous cells have stiffer surrounding tissue than healthy cells, and research suggests that this alters cell behavior and promotes metastasis. Despite these findings, the cellular processes behind these signaling alterations remain widely unknown. Understanding these cascades is critical, as involved proteins can give us a deeper understanding of the role of mechanotransduction, and certain proteins can potentially be targeted …


Probing Large Intrinsically Disordered Regions Through Novel Sortase-Mediated Ligation, Leah Kjormoe May 2020

Probing Large Intrinsically Disordered Regions Through Novel Sortase-Mediated Ligation, Leah Kjormoe

Scholars Week

In the realm of proteins, it is widely accepted that structure informs function. However, there are many proteins that contain intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs). These regions are areas in which the protein lacks defined structure, and IDPs are also often unstable, which complicates structural studies. NMR spectroscopy is an established method for probing protein structure and has been applied to that end in small IDRs. However, larger IDRs often have spectral overlap that makes data difficult to interpret. Furthermore, low-concentration samples limit spectral clarity. One method to address these difficulties is to use sortase ligation and segmental labeling, which increases …


Crystallization Efforts For An Engineered Nickel-Binding Protein, Gold-Bovine Serum Albumin Nanoclusters, And An Artificial De Novo Tetramer Hydrogenase Mimic, Skyler Crane May 2020

Crystallization Efforts For An Engineered Nickel-Binding Protein, Gold-Bovine Serum Albumin Nanoclusters, And An Artificial De Novo Tetramer Hydrogenase Mimic, Skyler Crane

Honors Theses

Protein crystallization is fundamental to modern research efforts given its ability to determine a protein’s structure as well as the interactions that structure allows and relies upon. This process, though lacking direct application, provides necessary information for subsequent research efforts for which applicationsmay be explored. As such, efforts were taken to crystallize nickel-binding protein (NBP) reengineered from Copper Storage Protein 1 (Csp1) in its apo and metal bound form, Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) in its apo and gold bound form (Au-BSA), and an artificial de novo tetramer hydrogenase mimic peptide to better inform future research actions for these respective molecules. …


Investigation Of Potentially Catalytic Residues Of Uba5 Through Mutagenesis, Purification, And Structural Characterization, Grant Bradley May 2020

Investigation Of Potentially Catalytic Residues Of Uba5 Through Mutagenesis, Purification, And Structural Characterization, Grant Bradley

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Ubiquitin-fold modifier 1 (Ufm1) is a member of the Ubiquitin (Ub) family of proteins whose primary function is degradation of proteins through a sequential mechanism of chemical reactions. Though Ufm1’s specific roles are largely unknown, this family of proteins has shown to play a part in a wide variety of processes, including regulation of the cell cycle1, secretory functions of cells2,3, and blood clotting4. Ufm1’s mechanism of action proceeds with the aid of three enzymes: an E1, E2, and E3. Uba5 is the E1 activating enzyme that is specific to Ufm1, and its mechanism of …


Characterization Of Avidin And Case9 Single Protein Molecules By A Solid-State Nanopore Device, Haopeng Li May 2020

Characterization Of Avidin And Case9 Single Protein Molecules By A Solid-State Nanopore Device, Haopeng Li

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The shape and charge of a protein play significant roles in protein dynamics in the biological system of humans and animals. Characterizing and quantifying the shape and charge of a protein at the single-molecule level remains a challenge. Solid-state nanopores made of silicon nitride (SiNx) have emerged as novel platforms for biosensing such as diagnostics for single-molecule detection and DNA sequencing. SSN detection is based on measuring the variations in ionic conductance as charged biomolecules translocate through nanometer-sized channels driven by an external voltage applied across the membrane. In this paper, we observe the translocation of asymmetric cylindrical structure CRISPR-Cas9 …


The Classification Of An Unknown Protein 3h04, Britney Dyszel Apr 2020

The Classification Of An Unknown Protein 3h04, Britney Dyszel

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Presentations

An unclassified protein in the Protein Data Bank, 3H04, was selected as a protein of interest. Research was performed in silico to gain key information on the structure, sequence, and homology of protein 3H04. This research was guided using the BASIL Project’s protocols on in silico research. Several databases were utilized to study protein 3H04. Based on the data gathered, unclassified protein 3H04 is an aminopeptidase that cleaves prolyl-dipeptidyl peptide bonds through alpha beta hydrolase function.


A Proteomic Analysis Of Corydoras Sterbai Secretions And Tissues, Erik Powell Wictor Jan 2020

A Proteomic Analysis Of Corydoras Sterbai Secretions And Tissues, Erik Powell Wictor

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Defensive mechanisms vary widely in the animal kingdom ranging from physical defenses like spines to chemical defenses such as toxins. Toxins in these secretions and tissues can fluctuate from enzymes to lipids to uncharacterized chemicals. Next generation -omics technology and mass spectrometry are extremely important in analyzing these samples because of their ability to distinguish minute amounts of toxic substance within a complicated sample. The goal of this experiment was to look at secretions and tissues from Corydoras sterbai. All samples in this study were proteolyzed using a mixture of Trypsin and Lys-C, fractionated, and run through nanoLC-MS/MS analysis using …