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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
First Major Appearance Of Brachiopod-Dominated Benthic Shelly Communities In The Reef Ecosystem During The Early Silurian, Cale A.C. Gushulak
First Major Appearance Of Brachiopod-Dominated Benthic Shelly Communities In The Reef Ecosystem During The Early Silurian, Cale A.C. Gushulak
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
The early Silurian reefs of the Attawapiskat Formation in the Hudson Bay Basin preserved the oldest record of major invasion of the coral-stromatoporoid skeletal reefs by brachiopods and other marine shelly benthos, providing an excellent opportunity for studying the early evolution, functional morphology, and community organization of the rich and diverse reef-dwelling brachiopods. Biometric and multivariate analysis demonstrate that the reef-dwelling Pentameroides septentrionalis evolved from the level-bottom-dwelling Pentameroides subrectus to develop a larger and more globular shell. The reef-dwelling brachiopods in the paleoequatorial Hudson Bay Basin were more diverse than contemporaneous higher latitude reef-dwelling brachiopod faunas, with ten distinct …
Evaluation Of Mertk Evolution And Efferocytosis Signalling, Amanda L. Evans
Evaluation Of Mertk Evolution And Efferocytosis Signalling, Amanda L. Evans
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
The TAM (TYRO3, AXL, and MERTK) family of receptor tyrosine kinases allow phagocytes to engage in the phagocytic removal of apoptotic cells. Although all three members of the TAM family are structurally homologous and function in a similar fashion, both human genome-wide association studies and knockout mice models have demonstrated that MERTK is the critical member of the TAM family for maintaining homeostasis. In this thesis, an evolutionary analysis was used to provide insight into the function of MERTK. Selection analysis in primates unexpectedly revealed a high degree of recent positive selection in MERTK’s signal peptide and transmembrane domain, …