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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

The Role Of Nucleolin Phosphorylation By Ck2 In Regulating Cellular Fate Under Normal And Stress Conditions, Shu Xiao Sep 2017

The Role Of Nucleolin Phosphorylation By Ck2 In Regulating Cellular Fate Under Normal And Stress Conditions, Shu Xiao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nucleolin (NCL or C23) is an abundant genotoxic stress-responsive RNA binding phosphoprotein. NCL constitutes 10% of total nucleolar protein that has functions in multiple biological processes, including ribosome biogenesis, DNA/RNA metabolism, cellular response to DNA damage, cell growth, proliferation and death. In this dissertation, I elucidate the role of nucleolin phosphorylation by casein kinase 2 (CK2) in controlling cellular fate by regulating p53 checkpoint under normal and stressed conditions. First, I demonstrate that the six consensus CK2 sites on the N-terminus of NCL are important for cell survival and proliferation. Expression of CK2 phosphorylation-deficient NCL mutant leads to dominant negative …


Distribution And Activation Of Catecholaminergic Neurons In The Brain Of Male Plainfin Midshipman Fish: Divergence In Behavior And Reproductive Phenotype, Zachary Ghahramani Sep 2017

Distribution And Activation Of Catecholaminergic Neurons In The Brain Of Male Plainfin Midshipman Fish: Divergence In Behavior And Reproductive Phenotype, Zachary Ghahramani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The plainfin midshipman fish, Porichthys notatus, provides an excellent opportunity for delimiting the influence of neurochemical content on vertebrate vocal behavior, in part because the production and recognition of social-acoustic signals is vital to their reproductive behavior. There are two distinct reproductive male morphs that follow divergent developmental trajectories with corresponding alternative reproductive tactics: type I males are the territorial/nesting morph that vocally court females during the summer breeding season while type II males do not court females, but instead sneak spawn in competition with type I males. Catecholaminergic neurons, which synthesize and release the neurotransmitters dopamine or noradrenaline, …


Retinal Progenitor Cell, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell, And 3d Mini Retina Derived Extracellular Vesicles Contain Transcription Factors, Microrna And Protein Associated With Potency And Development, Jing Zhou Sep 2017

Retinal Progenitor Cell, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell, And 3d Mini Retina Derived Extracellular Vesicles Contain Transcription Factors, Microrna And Protein Associated With Potency And Development, Jing Zhou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a novel cell-to-cell communication mechanism in recent years. EVs are membrane-covered cell fragments released into the extracellular environment by all cell types in the normal physiological and pathological conditions. These membranous extracellular organelles include exosomes (30-100 nm) and microparticles (100-1000 nm), which are believed to play a pivotal role in intercellular communication. EVs represent the way for intercellular transfer of proteins and RNAs. By transfer of genetic materials, EVs are involved in reprogramming and tissue repair. We predict that during retinal development, retinal progenitor cells release EVs containing temporally expressed mRNA, proteins and miRNA, …


Walking As Ontological Shifter: Thoughts In The Key Of Life, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro Sep 2017

Walking As Ontological Shifter: Thoughts In The Key Of Life, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With walking as ontological shifter I pursue an alternative to the dominant modernist episteme that offers either/or onto-epistemologies of opposition and their reifying engagements. I propose this type of walking is an intentional turning towards a set of radical positions that, as integrative aesthetic and therapeutic practice, brings multiplicity and synchronicity to experience and being in an expanded sociality. This practice facilitates the conditions of possibility for recurring points of contact between the interiority perceived as ‘body’ and the exteriority perceived as ‘world.’ While making evident the self’s at once incoherence with it-self, it opens to a space beyond the …


The P53 Independent Functions Of Estrogen-Activated Mdm2 In Cell Signaling And Mammary Architecture, Nandini Kundu Jun 2017

The P53 Independent Functions Of Estrogen-Activated Mdm2 In Cell Signaling And Mammary Architecture, Nandini Kundu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancers often have MDM2 overexpression indicating a critical role for MDM2 in breast cancer tumorigenesis. The cancer genome atlas (TCGA) found that increased MDM2 expression is one of the four pathways that correlate with all breast cancer subtypes. MDM2 is mainly known as the negative regulator of wild type p53. However, aggressive breast cancers often have MDM2 overexpression and mutant p53 (mtp53). We previously reported that MDM2 provides an estrogen-mediated proliferative advantage to MCF-7 breast cancer cells (ER+, MDM2 overexpression, wild type p53), independent of wild type p53 in both 2D and 3D culture conditions. …


The Recycling Gtpase, Rab-10, Regulates Autophagy Flux In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Nicholas J. Palmisano Jun 2017

The Recycling Gtpase, Rab-10, Regulates Autophagy Flux In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Nicholas J. Palmisano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Autophagy and endocytosis are two cellular pathways that are vital to cell growth and homeostasis. Autophagy is a dynamic and catabolic process involving the formation of a double-membrane vesicle called the autophagosome, which engulfs long-lived proteins and damaged organelles. Endocytosis involves the uptake of extracellular material into the cell through the formation of intracellular vesicles termed endosomes. Although both endocytosis and autophagy are interconnected processes, the extent to which endocytic proteins and/or compartments contribute to autophagy, and how these endocytic components do so, is still unknown. To improve our understanding of the connections that exist between autophagy and endocytosis, we …


Body Size Regulation Via Bmp Signaling In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Uday Madaan Jun 2017

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 …


Characterizing The Impacts Of Contaminants On Fish Embryogenesis And Revealing An Alternate Molecular Mechanism Of Ahr Mediated Cardiac Defects, Corinna Singleman Jun 2017

Characterizing The Impacts Of Contaminants On Fish Embryogenesis And Revealing An Alternate Molecular Mechanism Of Ahr Mediated Cardiac Defects, Corinna Singleman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a long history of damage to natural ecosystems from environmental pollution. Many environmental contaminants are man-made and have been released with abandon over the last 100 years including dioxins, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). These chemicals act on similar cellular processes and cause skin lesions, cancer, learning disabilities and reproductive problems in many vertebrates. There are many studies exploring various aspects of TCDD and PCB exposure on model and wild organisms. Few studies however, have compared effects of PCB mixtures on ecosystems to effects of individual PCBs in the lab. The first aim of this thesis is …


Post-Transcriptional Regulation Of The Drosophila Anterior Determinant, Bicoid, John Mclaughlin Feb 2017

Post-Transcriptional Regulation Of The Drosophila Anterior Determinant, Bicoid, John Mclaughlin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a wide variety of biological contexts, messenger RNA (mRNA) is known to have a complex and dynamic life cycle. In particular, the localization and translational control of mRNA are essential for proper development in eukaryotes. The fly Drosophila melanogaster is an excellent model for studying these processes. During D. melanogaster oogenesis, several mRNAs are trafficked and localized within the developing egg chamber, and regulated at the translational level to enable embryo patterning. One such mRNA, bicoid, is localized at the anterior of the oocyte and translated in the early embryo, where its encoded protein directs formation of the fly's …


Physical Mechanisms And Biological Consequences Of Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Modulation By Fhf Proteins, Yue Liu Feb 2017

Physical Mechanisms And Biological Consequences Of Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Modulation By Fhf Proteins, Yue Liu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Purpose: FHFs are cytosolic proteins that bind to voltage-gated sodium channels (NaVs) and modulate their functions to control membrane excitability. FHFs raise the voltage dependence of NaV fast inactivation to promote excitability, while A isoforms FHF (A-FHFs) also capture open sodium channels into a long-term inactivated (LTI) state to limit excitability. My research has addressed how FHFs balance membrane excitability as it relates to normal and pathological brain functions. Part of this work stemmed from the discovery of a missense FHF1 mutation in patients with severe early onset epilepsy. Methods and Results: Wild-type FHF1A and FHF1B were …