Life Sciences Commons^™

Splenic Stromal Niches Support Hematopoiesis Of Dendritic-Like Cells From Precursors In Bone Marrow And Spleen., Pravin Periasamy, Jonathan Tan, Kristin Griffiths, Helen O'Neill

Jonathan Tan

Objective The aims of this study are to test the ability of stromal cells from murine spleen to support hematopoiesis, to define the tissue source of precursors that seed these hematopoietic niches, and to determine the type of cells produced. Materials and Methods Cloned isolates of murine spleen stroma have been developed that support hematopoiesis. Analysis has been investigated in terms of tissue source of progenitors. Type and number of cells produced were analyzed by flow cytometry. Results Hematopoietic precursors that seed cocultures exist in spleen and bone marrow (BM), but not thymus. Cell production is highest if overlay cells ...

Joint Fire Science Program – Lake Mead National Recreation Area Revegetating Burned Arid Lands: Identifying Successful Native Species Using Trait And Competition Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, Time Period: October 1 — December 31, 2009, Margaret N. Rees

Fire Science

• Article accepted for publication in Journal of Arid Environments.

• Recharged irrigation gel packs for outplanting and watered seed plots at Goodsprings site.

• Completed full year of seed granivory trials at Goodsprings site.

• Presented information on this Task Agreement to 4th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress.

• Maintained nursery plots and added installment of nitrogen treatment.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Monitoring And Evaluation Of Sensitive Wildlife: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending December 31, 2009, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

Project 1. Relict Leopard Frog Monitoring, Management, and Research

• All milestones and deliverables are on schedule
• Fall surveys at all sites have been completed
• Mark-recapture surveys scheduled for fall were completed
• Short-term habitat improvements at two sites were conducted
• RLFCT meeting was hosted
• Draft annual report was written and presented at the RLFCT meeting

Project 2. Bald Eagle Winter Monitoring and Evaluation

• All milestones and deliverables are on schedule
• An annual project review presentation was given to Clark County
• A draft final report was written and submitted to Clark County
• All data for this project was transferred to the County ...

Anomalous Constitutive Src Kinase Activity Promotes B Lymphoma Survival And Growth, Jiyuan Ke, R. Lakshman Chelvarajan, Vishal Sindhava, Darrell A. Robertson, Lazaros Lekakis, C. Darrell Jennings, Subbarao Bondada

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Background: Previously we have shown that B cell receptor (BCR) expression and B cell receptor signaling pathways are important for the basal growth of B lymphoma cells. In particular we have shown that the activation of Syk, a non-src family protein tyrosine kinase and the mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK), ERK and JNK that mediate BCR signals are required for the constitutive growth of B lymphoma cells. Since src family protein tyrosine kinases (SFKs) like Lyn are known to be needed for the phosphorylation of BCR co-receptors, Ig-alpha and Ig-beta, we hypothesized that one or more SFKs will be constitutively ...

Investing In Maine Research Infrastructure: Sustainable Forest Bioproducts, Michael Eckardt, Stephen Shaler, Hemant P. Pendse, Adriaan R. P. Van Heiningen, Robert G. Wagner

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The University of Maine, the University of Southern Maine, several baccalaureate institutions in the state, along with other federal, state and local public, private, and non-profit institutions will collaborate to create the Forest Bioproducts Research Institute (FBRI) at the University of Maine. The vision of the FBRI is to advance understanding about the scientific underpinnings, system behavior, and policy implications for the production of forest-based bioproducts that meet societal needs for materials, chemicals, and fuels in an economically and ecologically sustainable manner.

The research plans Integrate three themes. They are (1) forest sustainability modeling of life cycle assessment, (2) integrated ...

A Constant Light-Genetic Screen Identifies Kismet As A Regulator Of Circadian Photoresponses, Raphaëlle Dubruille, Alejandro D. Murad, Michael Rosbash, Patrick Emery

Open Access Publications by UMass Chan Authors

Circadian pacemakers are essential to synchronize animal physiology and behavior with the dayrationight cycle. They are self-sustained, but the phase of their oscillations is determined by environmental cues, particularly light intensity and temperature cycles. In Drosophila, light is primarily detected by a dedicated blue-light photoreceptor: CRYPTOCHROME (CRY). Upon light activation, CRY binds to the pacemaker protein TIMELESS (TIM) and triggers its proteasomal degradation, thus resetting the circadian pacemaker. To understand further the CRY input pathway, we conducted a misexpression screen under constant light based on the observation that flies with a disruption in the CRY input pathway remain robustly rhythmic ...

A Laser Pointer Driven Microheater For Precise Local Heating And Conditional Gene Regulation In Vivo. Microheater Driven Gene Regulation In Zebrafish, Mike Placinta, Meng-Chieh Shen, Marc Achermann, Rolf O. Karlstrom

Rolf O Karlstrom

Background - Tissue heating has been employed to study a variety of biological processes, including the study of genes that control embryonic development. Conditional regulation of gene expression is a particularly powerful approach for understanding gene function. One popular method for mis-expressing a gene of interest employs heat-inducible heat shock protein (hsp) promoters. Global heat shock of hsp-promoter-containing transgenic animals induces gene expression throughout all tissues, but does not allow for spatial control. Local heating allows for spatial control of hsp-promoter-driven transgenes, but methods for local heating are cumbersome and variably effective. Results - We describe a simple, highly controllable, and versatile ...

Application Of Fungal Waste Biomass Originating From Steroid Hormone Manufacture For Heavy Metals Removal, Katarzyna Paraszkiewicz, Aleksandra Felczak, Jerzy Długoński

Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, Folia Biologica et Oecologica

The biomass of Curvularia lunata, used previously for hydrocortisone production, was investigated as a heavy metal biosorbent. Removal of lead, zinc and cadmium ions was evaluated as a function of biosorbent dosages, initial ion concentrations, mode of mycelium modifications, initial pH of metal solutions and when these metals ions where presented in binary as well in ternary combinations. The results presented in this paper indicate the potential utility of C. lunata waste biomass for lead and, to a lower extent, for zinc and cadmium ions removal from acid solutions.

The New Locality Of Chenopodium Pumilio R. Br. In Poland, Piotr Witosławski

Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, Folia Biologica et Oecologica

The clammy goosefoot Chenopodium pumilio R. Br. is a rare anthropophyte in the Polish flora. Hitherto, this species was recorded in Gdańsk and Rybnik. The present study describes the newly-discovered locality in Stryków near Łódź (Central Poland), the occurrence of this species in Poland and the general geographical distribution in the world.

The Acidic Domains Of The Toc159 Chloroplast Preprotein Receptor Family Are Instrinsically Disordered Protein Domains, Lynn G.L. Richardson, Masoud Jelokhani-Niaraki, Matthew D. Smith

Biology Faculty Publications

Background: The Toc159 family of proteins serve as receptors for chloroplast-destined preproteins. They directly bind to transit peptides, and exhibit preprotein substrate selectivity conferred by an unknown mechanism. The Toc159 receptors each include three domains: C-terminal membrane, central GTPase, and N-terminal acidic (A-) domains. Although the function(s) of the A-domain remains largely unknown, the amino acid sequences are most variable within these domains, suggesting they may contribute to the functional specificity of the receptors.

Results: The physicochemical properties of the A-domains are characteristic of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). Using CD spectroscopy we show that the A-domains of two Arabidopsis ...

The Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii Bbsome Is An Ift Cargo Required For Export Of Specific Signaling Proteins From Flagella, Karl-Ferdinand Lechtreck, Eric C. Johnson, Tsuyoshi Sakai, Deborah A. Cochran, Bryan A. Ballif, John Rush, Gregory J. Pazour, Mitsuo Ikebe, George B. Witman

Witman Lab Publications

In humans, seven evolutionarily conserved genes that cause the cilia-related disorder Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) encode proteins that form a complex termed the BBSome. The function of the BBSome in the cilium is not well understood. We purified a BBSome-like complex from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii flagella and found that it contains at least BBS1, -4, -5, -7, and -8 and undergoes intraflagellar transport (IFT) in association with a subset of IFT particles. C. reinhardtii insertional mutants defective in BBS1, -4, and -7 assemble motile, full-length flagella but lack the ability to phototax. In the bbs4 mutant, the assembly and transport of IFT ...

Mir319a Targeting Of Tcp4 Is Critical For Petal Growth And Development In Arabidopsis, Anwesha Nag, Stacey King, Thomas Jack

Dartmouth Scholarship

In a genetic screen in a drnl-2 background, we isolated a loss-of-function allele in miR319a (miR319a¹²⁹). Previously, miR319a has been postulated to play a role in leaf development based on the dramatic curled-leaf phenotype of plants that ectopically express miR319a (jaw-D). miR319a¹²⁹ mutants exhibit defects in petal and stamen development; petals are narrow and short, and stamens exhibit defects in anther development. The miR319a¹²⁹ loss-of-function allele contains a single-base change in the middle of the encoded miRNA, which reduces the ability of miR319a to recognize targets. Analysis of the expression patterns of the three members of the ...

The Principled Control Of False Positives In Neuroimaging, Craig M. Bennett, George L. Wolford, Michael B. Miller

Dartmouth Scholarship

An incredible amount of data is generated in the course of a functional neuroimaging experiment. The quantity of data gives us improved temporal and spatial resolution with which to evaluate our results. It also creates a staggering multiple testing problem. A number of methods have been created that address the multiple testing problem in neuroimaging in a principled fashion. These methods place limits on either the familywise error rate (FWER) or the false discovery rate (FDR) of the results. These principled approaches are well established in the literature and are known to properly limit the amount of false positives across ...

Rearrangement Of The Rna Polymerase Subunit H And The Lower Jaw In Archaeal Elongation Complexes, Sebastian Grünberg, Christoph Reich, Mirijam E. Zeller, Michael S. Bartlett, Michael Thomm

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The lower jaws of archaeal RNA polymerase and eukaryotic RNA polymerase II include orthologous subunits H and Rpb5, respectively. The tertiary structure of H is very similar to the structure of the C-terminal domain of Rpb5, and both subunits are proximal to downstream DNA in pre-initiation complexes. Analyses of reconstituted euryarchaeal polymerase lacking subunit H revealed that H is important for open complex formation and initial transcription. Eukaryotic Rpb5 rescues activity of the ΔH enzyme indicating a strong conservation of function for this subunit from archaea to eukaryotes. Photochemical cross-linking in elongation complexes revealed a striking structural rearrangement of RNA ...

Smokejumper Obituary: Herred, Doy A. (Missoula 1946), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Urbanisation In The United Arab Emirates: The Challenges For Ecological Mitigation In A Rapidly Developing Country, Andrew Gardner, Brigitte Howarth

All Works

Th e United Arab Emirates is a small Gulf country with perhaps the fastest rate of infrastructure development anywhere. While there is legislation in place requiring environmental impact assessments (EIA) to be undertaken for all major projects, the speed and scope of development provides special challenges in devising and implementing ecological mitigation against the loss of habitats and biodiversity that this development engenders. Th is paper critically discusses mitigation strategies that have been attempted, and suggests mitigation strategies in the local context. It is hoped that this will assist both the environmental consultants involved in the EIA process and the ...

Proteolytic Regulation Of Toxin-Antitoxin Systems By Clppc In Staphylococcus Aureus, Niles P. Donegan, Earl T. Thompson, Zhibiao Fu, Ambrose L. Cheung

Dartmouth Scholarship

Bacterial toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems typically consist of a small, labile antitoxin that inactivates a specific longer-lived toxin. In Escherichia coli, such antitoxins are proteolytically regulated by the ATP-dependent proteases Lon and ClpP. Under normal conditions, antitoxin synthesis is sufficient to replace this loss from proteolysis, and the bacterium remains protected from the toxin. However, if TA production is interrupted, antitoxin levels decrease, and the cognate toxin is free to inhibit the specific cellular component, such as mRNA, DnaB, or gyrase. To date, antitoxin degradation has been studied only in E. coli, so it remains unclear whether similar mechanisms of regulation ...

Smokejumper Obituary: Ewing, Shane Allen (Missoula 2004), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Sympatric Ecological Speciation Meets Pyrosequencing: Sampling The Transcriptome Of The Apple Maggot Rhagoletis Pomonella, Dietmar Schwarz, Hugh M. Robertson, Jeffrey L. Feder, Kranthi Varala, Matthew E. Hudson, Gregory J. Ragland, Daniel A. Hahn, Stewart H. Berlocher

Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Background

The full power of modern genetics has been applied to the study of speciation in only a small handful of genetic model species - all of which speciated allopatrically. Here we report the first large expressed sequence tag (EST) study of a candidate for ecological sympatric speciation, the apple maggot Rhagoletis pomonella, using massively parallel pyrosequencing on the Roche 454-FLX platform. To maximize transcript diversity we created and sequenced separate libraries from larvae, pupae, adult heads, and headless adult bodies.

Results

We obtained 239,531 sequences which assembled into 24,373 contigs. A total of 6810 unique protein coding genes ...

2008-2009 Annual Report

Annual Report Archive from UNL Extension in Lancaster County

Know how. Know now.
15-to-1 Return on Investment
2009 Program Highlights
Research Confirms 4-H Youth Are Leaders and Contribute to Our Community
From NU to You
http://lancaster.unl.edu is Your 24/7 Local Extension Connection
4-H Youth Learn Life Skills Through Learning-by-Doing
AmericCorps Member is part of Go-Green Initiative
Honors, Awards and Accomplishments
Lancaster Extension Education Center Conference Facilities
Yard & Garden
Plant and Pest Diagnostic Services
Pests & Wildlife
Home & Family Living
Farms & Acreages
Nutrition & Food Safety
Family & Community Education (FCE) Clubs

A Unique Role For The Host Escrt Proteins In Replication Of Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus, Daniel Barajas, Yi Jiang, Peter D. Nagy

Plant Pathology Faculty Publications

Plus-stranded RNA viruses replicate in infected cells by assembling viral replicase complexes consisting of viral- and host-coded proteins. Previous genome-wide screens with Tomato bushy stunt tombusvirus (TBSV) in a yeast model host revealed the involvement of seven ESCRT (endosomal sorting complexes required for transport) proteins in viral replication. In this paper, we show that the expression of dominant negative Vps23p, Vps24p, Snf7p, and Vps4p ESCRT factors inhibited virus replication in the plant host, suggesting that tombusviruses co-opt selected ESCRT proteins for the assembly of the viral replicase complex. We also show that TBSV p33 replication protein interacts with Vps23p ESCRT-I ...

Northeast Research Station Watertown, South Dakota Annual Progress Report, 2009, Agricultural Experiment Station, Plant Science Department

Agricultural Experiment Station and Research Farm Annual Reports

This is the 2009 annual progress report for the Northeast Research Station in Watertown, South Dakota. This report is issued by the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and the South Dakota State University Plant Science Department. This report includes weather data, yield comparisons, crop performance trials, corn trials, soybean trials, winter wheat performance testing, Barley Foliar information, weed and pest control, herbicide demonstrations, canola and flax variety trials and more.

Smokejumper Obituary: Dwight, George H. (Missoula 1950), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Role And Regulation Of The Actin-Regulatory Protein Hs1 In Tcr Signaling, Esteban Carrizosa

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

Numerous aspects of T cell function, including TCR signaling, migration, and execution of effector functions, depend on the actin cytoskeleton. Cytoskeletal rearrangements are driven by the action of actin-regulatory proteins, which promote or antagonize the assembly of actin filaments in response to external cues. In this work, we have examined the regulation and function of HS1, a poorly-understood actin regulatory protein, in T cells. This protein, which becomes tyrosine phosphorylated upon T cell activation, is thought to function primarily by stabilizing existing branched actin filaments. Loss of HS1 results in unstable actin responses upon TCR engagement and defective Ca2+ responses ...

Chromatin 'Programming' By Sequence - Is There More To The Nucleosome Code Than %Gc, Amanda Hughes, Oliver J. Rando

Open Access Publications by UMass Chan Authors

The role of genomic sequence in directing the packaging of eukaryotic genomes into chromatin has been the subject of considerable recent debate. A new paper from Tillo and Hughes shows that the intrinsic thermodynamic preference of a given sequence in the yeast genome for the histone octamer can largely be captured with a simple model, and in fact is mostly explained by %GC. Thus, the rules for predicting nucleosome occupancy from genomic sequence are much less complicated than has been claimed.

Nuclear Receptor Unfulfilled Regulates Axonal Guidance And Cell Identity Of Drosophila Mushroom Body Neurons, Suewei Lin, Yaling Huang, Tzumin Lee

Open Access Publications by UMass Chan Authors

Nuclear receptors (NRs) comprise a family of ligand-regulated transcription factors that control diverse critical biological processes including various aspects of brain development. Eighteen NR genes exist in the Drosophila genome. To explore their roles in brain development, we knocked down individual NRs through the development of the mushroom bodies (MBs) by targeted RNAi. Besides recapitulating the known MB phenotypes for three NRs, we found that unfulfilled (unf), an ortholog of human photoreceptor specific nuclear receptor (PNR), regulates axonal morphogenesis and neuronal subtype identity. The adult MBs develop through remodeling of gamma neurons plus de-novo elaboration of both alpha'/beta' and ...

Economic And Other Barriers To Adopting Recommendations To Prevent Childhood Obesity: Results Of A Focus Group Study With Parents, Kendrin R. Sonneville, Nancy R. Lapelle, Elsie M. Taveras, Matthew W. Gillman, Lisa A. Prosser

Open Access Publications by UMass Chan Authors

BACKGROUND: Parents are integral to the implementation of obesity prevention and management recommendations for children. Exploration of barriers to and facilitators of parental decisions to adopt obesity prevention recommendations will inform future efforts to reduce childhood obesity.

METHODS: We conducted 4 focus groups (2 English, 2 Spanish) among a total of 19 parents of overweight (BMI >or= 85th percentile) children aged 5-17 years. The main discussion focused on 7 common obesity prevention recommendations: reducing television (TV) watching, removing TV from child's bedroom, increasing physically active games, participating in community or school-based athletics, walking to school, walking more in general ...

The Evolutionary Genetics Of Life History In Drosophila Melanogaster, Annalise B. Paaby

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

Life history traits are critical components of fitness and frequently reflect adaptive responses to environmental pressures. Natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster exhibit patterns of lifespan, fecundity, development time, body size and stress resistance that vary predictably along environmental gradients. Artificial selection studies, genetic correlation analyses, and quantitative trait mapping efforts have demonstrated a genetic basis for the observed phenotypic variation, but few genes have been identified that contribute to natural life history variation. This work employs a candidate gene approach to discover genes and specific polymorphisms that contribute to genetic variance for D. melanogaster life history. Three aging genes, which ...

Evolution Of Genome-Wide Gene Regulation In The Budding Yeast Cell-Division Cycle, Daniel F. Simola

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

Genome-wide regulation of gene expression involves a dynamic epigenetic structure which generates an organism's life-cycle. Although changes in gene expression during development have broad effects on many basic phenomena including cell growth, differentiation, morphogenesis, and disease progression, the evolutionary forces influencing gene expression dynamics and gene regulation remain largely unknown, due to the nature of gene expression as a polygenic, quantitative trait. Moreover, gene expression is regulated differentially over time, so evolutionary forces may be influenced by developmental context. To advance the understanding of evolution in the context of the life-cycle, the architecture of gene expression timing control and ...

Mechanisms Of Notch-Mediated Inhibition Of Skeletal Myogenesis, Matthew F. Buas

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

The Notch pathway is an evolutionarily conserved signaling cascade that regulates many cell fate decisions. Recent work has revealed that Notch plays critical roles in the control of skeletal muscle development and regeneration. In the embryo, Notch maintains a pool of myogenic progenitor cells and prevents their premature differentiation. In the adult, after muscle injury, Notch signaling is essential for the initial expansion of muscle stem cells, or satellite cells.

While it has been known for over a decade that Notch activity represses myogenic differentiation, the molecular mechanisms by which this inhibition occurs are poorly defined. In this thesis, I ...