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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
The Role Of T-Box Proteins In Vertebrate Germ Layer Formation And Patterning, Sushma Teegala
The Role Of T-Box Proteins In Vertebrate Germ Layer Formation And Patterning, Sushma Teegala
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
All of the tissues in triploblastic organisms, with the exception of the germ cells, arise from the three germ layers, ectoderm, mesoderm and the endoderm. The identification of the genes that underlie the differentiation of these layers is crucial to our understanding of development. T-box family proteins are DNA-binding transcriptional regulators that play important roles during germ layer formation in the early vertebrate embryo. Well-characterized members of this family, including the transcriptional activators Brachyury and VegT, are essential for the proper formation of mesoderm and endoderm, respectively. To date, T-box proteins have not been shown to play a role in …
Body Size Regulation Via Bmp Signaling In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Uday Madaan
Body Size Regulation Via Bmp Signaling In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Uday Madaan
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The body size of an organism can be a crucial determinant of access to nutrition, reproductive success and overall survival in the wild. However, how body size of an individual is determined is incompletely understood. Body size is a complex trait determined by multiple pathways and genes, making it difficult to understand the role of individual genes and pathways in determining overall size. In Caenorhabditis elegans, a homolog of Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMP) is a major regulator of body size; functional loss of DBL-1 leads to a small body size. Due to a drastic change in body size in dbl-1 …
Transcriptional And Post-Transcriptional Regulation Of Histone Variant H2a.Z During Sea Urchin Development, Mihai Hajdu
Transcriptional And Post-Transcriptional Regulation Of Histone Variant H2a.Z During Sea Urchin Development, Mihai Hajdu
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Histone variant H2A.Z promotes chromatin accessibility at transcriptional regulatory elements and is developmentally regulated in metazoans. We characterize the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of H2A.Z in the purple sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. H2A.Z depletion by antisense translation-blocking morpholino oligonucleotides during early development causes developmental collapse, in agreement with its previously demonstrated general role in transcriptional multipotency. During H2A.Z peak expression in 24-h embryos, endogenous H2A.Z 3’ UTR sequences stabilize GFP mRNAs relative to those with SV40 3’ UTR sequences, although the 3’UTR of H2A.Z does not determine the spatial distribution of H2A.Z transcripts during embryonic and postembryonic development. We …
Environmental Changes Turn On The Sinorhizobium Melitloti Exor-Exos/Chvi (Rsi) Host Invasion Switch, Shari N. Walcott
Environmental Changes Turn On The Sinorhizobium Melitloti Exor-Exos/Chvi (Rsi) Host Invasion Switch, Shari N. Walcott
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The free-living Gram-negative soil bacterium, Sinorhizobium meliloti, must switch into its host-invading form in order to infect the root hairs of the host plant, alfalfa (Medicago sativa), and establish a nitrogen-fixing symbiosis. The activation of the switch is believed to occur inside the infection chamber that is formed by curling of the root hairs. It is not fully understood what signals in the environment of the root hairs trigger and infection chamber S. meliloti to switch into a host-invading form since these signals were not extensively examined until now. This switch can be observed directly, due to …