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Cleveland State University

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Influence Of Stimulus Amplitude On African Clawed Frogs' Choices Between Two Stimuli, Geetha Somarouthu, Austin Shaffer, Joseph Taraba Jan 2018

Influence Of Stimulus Amplitude On African Clawed Frogs' Choices Between Two Stimuli, Geetha Somarouthu, Austin Shaffer, Joseph Taraba

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

African clawed frogs locate prey using their lateral line systems to sense water movements the prey make. We’ve previously studied how the frogs choose between two stimuli; their choice is influenced by several factors including most importantly which stimulus is more rostral (i.e. more in front of them) and which is closer, which also means it arrives first with a larger amplitude. Here, we test whether stimulus amplitude affects choice. We generated surface waves by dipping two rods of different sizes into the water. Rods make waves both entering and leaving the water; both the material and diameter affect wave …


Roles Of H3v In Trypanosoma Brucei, Sandra Haswani Jan 2018

Roles Of H3v In Trypanosoma Brucei, Sandra Haswani

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, a protozoan that affects the central nervous system. This unicellular eukaryote can be transmitted to mammals by the bite of a tsetse fly. T. brucei evades the host’s adaptive immune response by carrying out antigenic variation of its protective coat of Variant Surface Glycoprotein which allows the infection to persist and be further transmitted. T. brucei lacks the sequence-specific transcription factors found in other eukaryotes, thus chromatin structures at PTU (polycistronic transcription units) boundaries are thought to play important roles in control of gene expression. This paper focuses …


The Use Of Retinoic Acid To Promote Atrial And Ventricular “Like” Cells To Aid In Atrial Fibrillation Research, Nautica Mccully Jan 2018

The Use Of Retinoic Acid To Promote Atrial And Ventricular “Like” Cells To Aid In Atrial Fibrillation Research, Nautica Mccully

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the irregular contraction of the atria, which are the top chambers of the heart. AF is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, affecting nearly 2.3 million people in the United States, common among people 40 and older. When AF is present the electrical signals that control this process is unbalance. Without proper diagnoses and treatment AF can be a life-treating condition. The use of human cellderived cardiomyocytes will allow the study of cells involvement in atrial fibrillation development. The addition of retinoic acid during a 30-day time course to myocytes allowed us, to investigate retinoic functions, by …


Circadian Clock Proteins Crys Are Involved In Control Of Diet Dependent Acot Expression, Marc Edwards, Allan Poe, Kuldeep Makwana Jan 2018

Circadian Clock Proteins Crys Are Involved In Control Of Diet Dependent Acot Expression, Marc Edwards, Allan Poe, Kuldeep Makwana

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Circadian clocks are evolutionarily conserved molecular timekeeping systems that generate rhythms in physiology and behavior in almost all living organisms and synchronize them with external environment. Living organisms have multiple circadian clocks which control numerous physiological functions. The light entrained circadian clock involves a transcriptional-translational feedback loop which regulates locomotor activity and metabolic processes and coordinates them with daily rhythms. The food entrainable oscillator (FEO) clock also generates near 24 hour circadian rhythmicity by driving food anticipatory behavior in mice. Mice entrained on 12:12hr light-dark cycle have been shown in previous studies to generate circadian rhythms in food anticipatory behavior, …


A Targeted Genetic Screen To Identify Meiotic Cohesin Regulators, Urja Patel, Emilia Kalutskaya, Alexis Brown, Ali Ahsan Jan 2018

A Targeted Genetic Screen To Identify Meiotic Cohesin Regulators, Urja Patel, Emilia Kalutskaya, Alexis Brown, Ali Ahsan

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

During oogenesis in animals deficient for REC-8, a cohesin subunit required for sister chromatids cohesin (SCC), Co recombination fails and sister chromatids segregate away from one another prematurely in meiosis I. Consequently, zygotes inherit two copies of each chromosome. Chromosome segregation in meiosis II fails and the progeny of rec-8 mutant mothers usually survive as viable polyploids. In contrast, homologs segregate randomly during meiosis I in oocytes produced by spo-11 mutants, which lack the transesterase required for crossover recombination. This results in aneuploidy, and nearly all the embryos die. We have shown that mutations disrupting SCC mediated by REC-8 cohesion, …


Weed Communities In Urban Agriculture, Joshua Ryan Jan 2018

Weed Communities In Urban Agriculture, Joshua Ryan

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Urban agriculture has been increasing all over the United States, especially in shrinking cities such as Cleveland, where increases in vacant land have brought opportunities for farming. There has also been a more interest in sustainable farming, as more people prefer locally sourced and organic food. However, like rural agriculture, urban agriculture also faces the problem of weed management, especially when growing organically eliminates some control options such as chemical means. As there is little to no research available on urban agricultural weeds, this research aims to identify and examine urban weed communities to obtain a better understanding of them, …


Screen For Interacting Factors For Trypanosoma Brucei Telomere Protein Rap1, Annelise Radzin, Elizabeth Beran Jan 2018

Screen For Interacting Factors For Trypanosoma Brucei Telomere Protein Rap1, Annelise Radzin, Elizabeth Beran

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Trypanosoma brucei is a protozoan parasite that causes human African Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in people and nagana in cattle, both of which are fatal without treatment. This parasite is injected into the host through the bite of the tsetse fly and is able to evade the host’s immune response due to changes in its major surface antigen, variant surface glycoproteins (VSGs). This constant switching prevents the host from making a single antibody that can recognize the antigen and eliminate the parasite. VSG expression sites have been found to be near the telomeres of Trypanosoma brucei, and studies from our lab …


Effect Of Feeding Regimens Of Yap Signaling, Xhuliana Fafaj, Nikkhil Velingkaar Jan 2018

Effect Of Feeding Regimens Of Yap Signaling, Xhuliana Fafaj, Nikkhil Velingkaar

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Many mammalian physiological and behavioral aspects show 24-hour circadian rhythms such as metabolism, sleep-wake cycle, body temperature and blood pressure. These 24 hour rhythms are regulated by circadian clocks, which are internal timekeeping systems located in every body cell and tissue, and synchronize these rhythms with the external environment. At the molecular level, CLOCK and BMAL1 are core clock genes involved in transcription-translation feedback loop which in turn regulate biological processes and coordinate them with daily rhythms. Circadian clock has been demonstrated to regulate cell cycle, cell proliferation and differentiation, but the mechanism in liver is not clearly known. Hippo …


Meiotic Drive In C. Elegans: A Violation Of Mendel's Second Law, Alexis Brown, Emilia Kalutskaya, Urja Patel, Taylor R. Schilling Jan 2018

Meiotic Drive In C. Elegans: A Violation Of Mendel's Second Law, Alexis Brown, Emilia Kalutskaya, Urja Patel, Taylor R. Schilling

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Under normal conditions, alleles segregate randomly during meiosis so that each one has an equal chance of being passed onto the next generation. However, in some cases, a given allele is more likely to be passed on, along with any nearby alleles. These cases are said to exhibit meiotic drive. Meiotic drive allows biased segregation of particular alleles instead of independent assortment. This process is significant because it can drive evolution by altering the genetic makeup of a population. Such a case exists in C. elegans, in which the offspring of males who carry the genetic balancer qC1 along with …


Simulation Of Abiotic Hurricane Effects On Lotic Meiofauna Abundance And Composition, Jamil Wilson Jan 2018

Simulation Of Abiotic Hurricane Effects On Lotic Meiofauna Abundance And Composition, Jamil Wilson

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Freshwater meiofauna are essential in our understanding of freshwater biomes. Their previous lack of attention in literature have sparked many to undergo research about their overall composition and distribution relative to many of the factors on which they depend. While more of these investigations have surfaced, few have looked at community adaptably or lack thereof when confronted with drastic changes to their environment. Therefore, this study observed what kinds of possible changes that can take place in these populations after the lingering effects of an enormous natural disaster. It is the objective of this study to identify the most influential …


Expression And Purification Of Full-Length Recombinant Plasmodium Falciparum Pfmc-2tm Maurer’S Cleft Protein, Alberto R. Williams-Medina, Kush Addepalli Jan 2018

Expression And Purification Of Full-Length Recombinant Plasmodium Falciparum Pfmc-2tm Maurer’S Cleft Protein, Alberto R. Williams-Medina, Kush Addepalli

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum remains the most virulent form of malaria, resulting in 216 million cases and 445,000 deaths globally. Invasion of red blood cells by P. falciparum leads to the formation of membranous structures known as Maurer’s clefts (MC). Virulence markers of P. falciparum such as PfEMP1 are transported across the MC to the surface of the infected red blood cell. Insight into the formation and function of the MC will be important for the discovery of new vaccine and drug candidates. The PfMC-2TM is encoded by a multi-gene family of 13 members. PfMC- 2TM is a protein …


Toward The Crystallization Of An Archaeal Dihydrorotase, Haley Newman, Ryan Godin Jan 2018

Toward The Crystallization Of An Archaeal Dihydrorotase, Haley Newman, Ryan Godin

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

Dihydroorotase catalyzes the conversion of N-carbamoyl-L-aspartate to Ldihydroorotate in the de novo biosynthesis of pyrimidines. M. jannaschii is an archaeon that thrives in extreme environments such as the hypothermal vents at the bottom of the oceans in which both temperature and pressure are extremely high. It can serve as a model organism for research purposes. This experiment is a first step toward elucidating the structure of this enzyme in M. jannaschii. Our summer research started using a partially purified enzyme preparation from previous experiments. We further purified the enzyme primarily using hydrophobic interaction and hydroxyapatite chromatographies. Twenty-four closely related conditions …


Quantifying The Ability Of Common Invasive Shrubs To Acquire And Use Water, To Tolerate Drought, And Compete With Native Plants Within Holden Arboretum, Ohio, Sean Fenton, Brooke Sietz Jan 2018

Quantifying The Ability Of Common Invasive Shrubs To Acquire And Use Water, To Tolerate Drought, And Compete With Native Plants Within Holden Arboretum, Ohio, Sean Fenton, Brooke Sietz

Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

There is very little data on the interaction between native and invasive shrubs in Eastern North America. There are a number of traits that make the establishment and impact of shrubs different than other species. Early emergence of leaves and varying rates of photosynthesis play a significant role. How plants use water, and how plants are influenced by drought have not been studied thoroughly. This is important for a better understanding of how plants will respond to the alteration of precipitation regimes that occur from climate change. Research has been predominantly focused on how water availability can shape the interspecies …