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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Component Trees For The Exploration Of Macromolecular Structures In Biology, Lucas Oliveira Oct 2014

Component Trees For The Exploration Of Macromolecular Structures In Biology, Lucas Oliveira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Understanding the three-dimensional structure of a macromolecular complex is essential for understanding its function. A component tree is a topological and geometric image descriptor that captures information regarding the structure of an image based on the connected components determined by different grayness thresholds. This dissertation presents a novel interactive framework for visual exploration of component trees of the density maps of macromolecular complexes, with the purpose of improved understanding of their structure. The interactive exploration of component trees together with a robust simplification methodology provide new insights in the study of macromolecular structures. An underlying mathematical theory is introduced and …


Structure And Function In Bacteriophage Phi6, James Carpino Jun 2014

Structure And Function In Bacteriophage Phi6, James Carpino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study of bacteriophage Phi6 has been preceded by a great number of exploratory studies of its structure and function, and these studies have formed a basis for Phi6's development into a model organism. In this study, two aspects of the model organism have been examined. 1. There are several uncharacterized and presumed untranslated regions (UTRs) in Phi6's 13.3 kilobase-pair dsRNA genome. I examined the impact of specific modification to the 3' UTR of the small segment of bacteriophage Phi6. I determined that modification to the purported UTR of the small segment resulted in severe fitness costs, supporting a …