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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Yawns Are Cool, Andrew C. Gallup, Omar T. Eldakar Sep 2017

Yawns Are Cool, Andrew C. Gallup, Omar T. Eldakar

Biology Faculty Articles

Although we yawn each and every day, most people have little understanding of why we do it. In fact, the function of yawning has remained mysterious for centuries, even among scientists, and this has only changed quite recently. Contrary to what people have believed for a long time, it is now understood that yawns have nothing to do with breathing or the amount of oxygen we are taking in. Instead, new and growing research has revealed that yawns serve as a brain cooling mechanism. This new perspective on yawning as a response to elevated brain temperature has transformed our understanding …


Climate Change, One Health And Mercury, L. K. Duffy, T. Vertigan, B. Dainowski, K. Dunlap, Amy Hirons Jun 2017

Climate Change, One Health And Mercury, L. K. Duffy, T. Vertigan, B. Dainowski, K. Dunlap, Amy Hirons

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Climate change is occurring on both regional and global scales. The use and global distribution of toxic metals is increasing and affecting environmental, animal and human health as a result of air, water and food contamination. Mercury (Hg) in major forms Hg°, Hg2+ and methyl mercury (CH3Hg+) are increasingly available around the globe. Both metal and organic contaminants are impacting the health of all species on the planet. Mercury is an example of a metal that can cause or aggravate a disease state, for example, diabetes. Habitat stewardship is needed to maintain a healthy system, …


Calcium Transient Assays For Compound Screening With Human Ipsc-Derived Cardiomyocytes: Evaluating New Tools, Neil J. Daily, Radleigh Santos, Joseph Vecchi, Pinar Kemanli, Tetsuro Wakatsuki Jan 2017

Calcium Transient Assays For Compound Screening With Human Ipsc-Derived Cardiomyocytes: Evaluating New Tools, Neil J. Daily, Radleigh Santos, Joseph Vecchi, Pinar Kemanli, Tetsuro Wakatsuki

Mathematics Faculty Articles

Calcium (Ca2+) plays a central role in regulating many biological processes in the cell from muscle contraction to neurotransmitter release. The need for reliable fluorescent calcium indicator dyes is of vast importance for studying many aspects of cell biology as well as screening compounds using phenotypic high throughput assays. We have assessed two of the latest generation of calcium indicator dyes, FLIPR Calcium 6 and Cal-520 AM for studying calcium transients (CaTs) in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) -derived human cardiomyocytes. FLIPR Calcium 6 and Cal-520 dyes both displayed robust CaTs with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and were non-toxic …


The Er Retention Protein Rer1 Promotes Alpha-Synuclein Degradation Via The Proteasome, Hyo-Jin Park, Daniel Ryu, Mayur Parmar, Benoit I. Giasson, Nikolaus R. Mcfarland Jan 2017

The Er Retention Protein Rer1 Promotes Alpha-Synuclein Degradation Via The Proteasome, Hyo-Jin Park, Daniel Ryu, Mayur Parmar, Benoit I. Giasson, Nikolaus R. Mcfarland

HPD Articles

Abnormal accumulation of α-synuclein (αSyn) has been linked to endoplasmic-reticulum (ER) stress, defective intracellular protein/vesicle trafficking, and cytotoxicity. Targeting factors involved in ER-related protein processing and trafficking may, therefore, be a key to modulating αSyn levels and associated toxicity. Recently retention in endoplasmic reticulum 1 (RER1) has been identified as an important ER retrieval/retention factor for Alzheimer's disease proteins and negatively regulates amyloid-β peptide levels. Here, we hypothesized that RER1 might also play an important role in retention/retrieval of αSyn and mediate levels. We expressed RER1 and a C-terminal mutant RER1Δ25, which lacks the ER retention/retrieval function, in HEK293 and …