Life Sciences Commons^™

Amyloid Protein Aggregation And Associated Toxicity, Chamani A. Niyangoda

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Amyloidosis is a group of diseases in which amyloid fibrils accumulate and deposit into plaques and intracellular inclusions which lead to disruption of the tissue architecture and function. Most of the amyloid diseases are incurable due to a lack of understanding of the amyloid formation, as well as associated toxicity. My research work is focused on three different aspects of amyloid aggregation.

The aim of the first project is to investigate the potential use of deep-blue autofluorescence (dbAF) as an intrinsic optical probe to study amyloid self-assembly. This novel fluorescence signal is excited at the long wavelength edge of the …

Analysis Of Dl-Amino Acid Ratios In Eggshells Using Reverse Phase-High Pressure Liquid Chromatography, Gergana Milkova

Honors Theses

HPLC methodology was developed to determine the concentrations and ratios of D to L amino acids in emu and ostrich eggshells treated with heat at different temperatures . We aimed to determine an internal standard and how ratios were affected under different conditions. An HPLC method was determined that gave consistent retention times and satisfactory enantioseparation . Calibration curves for each amino acid were developed from single and multi-amino acid containing dilution series producing a model that most closely replicates the eggshell-extracted amino acids.

Prep-Hplc Method Development To Isolate Potentially-Carcinogenic, Arginine-Based Heterocyclic Amines, Victoria S. Kim

Honors Theses

Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are carcinogenic molecules generated from the reaction of creatin(in)e and amino acids at high cooking temperatures in meat. Previous research has shown that replacing creatine with arginine leads to new, uncharacterized HCA molecules. This research entails implementing and optimizing the preparative HPLC analysis of extracts from multiple burnings of arginine with phenylalanine. Isolated fractions from the prep-HPLC analysis were further analyzed using the Ames test to identify mutagenic compounds. Prep-HPLC provides quality control to the burning process along with isolation of larger quantities of materials for further characterization and molecular structure identification.

Micro-Spectroscopy Of Bio-Assemblies At The Single Cell Level, Jeslin Kera

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In this thesis, we investigate biological molecules on a micron scale in the ultraviolet spectral region through the non-destructive confocal absorption microscopy. The setup involves a combination of confocal microscope with a UV light excitation beam to measure the optical absorption spectra with spatial resolution of 1.4 μm in the lateral and 3.6 μm in the axial direction. Confocal absorption microscopy has the benefits of requiring no labels and only low light intensity for excitation while providing a strong signal from the contrast generated by the attenuation of propagating light due to absorption. This enables spatially resolved measurements of single …

Metabolic Reprogramming Of Human Lung Cancer Cells And Ex Vivo Tissues Revealed By Uhr-Ftms Analysis Of Small Amino And Carboxyl Metabolites, Ye Yang

Theses and Dissertations--Toxicology and Cancer Biology

Studies were carried out to understand how human lung cancer cells and human ex vivo lung cancer tissues that are metabolically reprogramed compared with analogous non-cancer cells or non-cancer tissues. A Stable isotope resolved metabolomics (SIRM) approach was used to fulfill this aim by employing ¹³C, ²H or ¹⁵N labeled metabolic precursors like ¹³C₆-Glc, ¹³C₂-Gly, ²H₂-Gly, ²H₃-Ser, ¹³C₅, ¹⁵N₂-Gln to trace the flow of the labeled atoms into the down stream metabolic network. NMR and mass spectrometry are two …

Identifying The Amino Acids Important For Hiv Rev-Tubulin Interactions, Bruce E. Dukes Ii

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The Rev protein is Human Immunodeficiency virus's "switch" from events occurring early in infection to later events. Early in infection, the 13 KDa Rev protein begins to accumulate in the host cell nucleus. Once enough Rev is produced, Rev stimulates a switch in viral gene expression by multimerizing onto nuclear viral RNAs and stimulating their export into the cytoplasm. Multimerization occurs on an RNA structure called the Rev Response Element (RRE). Several Rev monomers bind the RRE and once that threshold is met the Rev-RRE complex is exported out of the nucleus. Once out of the nucleus the Rev-RRE complex …

Critical Amino Acids Of The Gα2 Subunit Helical Domain In Dictyostelium Discoideum, Steven Martin Rauch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Dictyostelium discoideum organism, the Gα2 subunit of the heterotrimeric G-protein signaling complex plays a pivotal role during the aggregation stage in the Dictyostelium life cycle. The biochemical functions of the G-protein complex include separation of the G-protein coupled receptor from the G-protein subunits, GDP displacement by GTP in the Gα subunit, separation of the Gα monomer from the βγ complex, GTP hydrolysis to GDP, activation of adenylyl cyclase as a downstream effector, and activation of guanylyl cyclase as a separate downstream effector. Upon release from the heterotrimer, the βγ subunits lead to downstream activation of the membrane bound adenylyl …

Autobiography Of Proteins In Nutrients, Marguerite Jones

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation

No abstract provided.