Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Life Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Statistical Inference Of Adaptation At Multiple Genomic Scales Using Supervised Classification And A Hidden Markov Model, Lauren A. Sugden May 2020

Statistical Inference Of Adaptation At Multiple Genomic Scales Using Supervised Classification And A Hidden Markov Model, Lauren A. Sugden

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.


Role Of Clic4 And The Synaptic Transcriptome In The Behavioral And Molecular Neurobiology Of Ethanol, Rory M. Weston Jan 2020

Role Of Clic4 And The Synaptic Transcriptome In The Behavioral And Molecular Neurobiology Of Ethanol, Rory M. Weston

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a prevalent neuropsychiatric disease with profound health, social, and economic consequences. With an estimated 50% heritability, identifying genes that engender risk and contribute to the underlying neurobiological mechanisms represents an important first step in developing effective treatments. Gene expression studies are an important source of candidate genes for studying AUD, providing windows into the molecular machinery engaged by the brain in response to ethanol. Published studies have identified chloride intracellular channel 4 (Clic4) as an ethanol-regulated gene in brain capable of modulating sensitivity to sedation in multiple species. The functions of Clic4 are …


Validation Of Ninein As An Ethanol-Related Quantitative Trait Gene: Reassessment, Design, And Functional Validation Of Reference Genes For Qpcr Analysis Of Brain Tissue In Mice, Jessica L. Jurmain Jan 2020

Validation Of Ninein As An Ethanol-Related Quantitative Trait Gene: Reassessment, Design, And Functional Validation Of Reference Genes For Qpcr Analysis Of Brain Tissue In Mice, Jessica L. Jurmain

Theses and Dissertations

The increasing use of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) as a method for quantifying gene expression has led to an increased demand for standardization of data analysis methods to ensure accurate reporting and robust, reproducible results. The exponential nature of qPCR amplification results in the potential magnification of what are usually very small sources of error. Relative gene expression calculations circumvent this issue by normalizing target gene expression data to within-sample expression of a previously validated, stably expressed reference gene or genes. Multiple studies discussed herein have found that qPCR data are more reliable and reproducible when multiple reference …


Interspecific Gene Flow Potentiates Adaptive Evolution In A Hybrid Zone Formed Between Pinus Strobiformis And Pinus Flexilis, Mitra Menon Jan 2020

Interspecific Gene Flow Potentiates Adaptive Evolution In A Hybrid Zone Formed Between Pinus Strobiformis And Pinus Flexilis, Mitra Menon

Theses and Dissertations

Species range margins are often characterised by high degrees of habitat fragmentation resulting in low genetic diversity and higher gene flow from populations at the core of the species range. Interspecific gene flow from a closely related species with abutting range margins can increase standing genetic diversity and generate novel allelic combinations thereby alleviating limits to adaptive evolution in range margin populations. Hybridization driven interspecific gene flow has played a key role in the demographic history of several conifer due to their life history characteristics such as weak crossability barriers and long generation times. Nevertheless, demonstrating whether introgression is adaptive …


Ndrg1 And Myelin-Related Disease: Alcoholism And Chemotherapy-Induced Neuropathy, Guy Harris Jan 2020

Ndrg1 And Myelin-Related Disease: Alcoholism And Chemotherapy-Induced Neuropathy, Guy Harris

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a prevalent neuropsychiatric disease with profound health, social, and economic consequences. With an estimated 50% heritability, identifying genes that engender risk and contribute to the underlying neurobiological mechanisms represents an important first step in developing effective treatments. Gene expression studies are an important source of candidate genes for studying AUD, providing windows into the molecular machinery engaged by the brain in response to ethanol. Our laboratory has implicated N-myc down-regulated gene 1 (Ndrg1) as a potential candidate gene that modulates ethanol-induced changes in myelin-related gene expression and acute sensitivity to ethanol. Analysis of …


Characterization Of The Dyrk1a Protein-Protein Interaction Network, Varsha Ananthapadmanabhan Jan 2020

Characterization Of The Dyrk1a Protein-Protein Interaction Network, Varsha Ananthapadmanabhan

Theses and Dissertations

Human Dual specificity tyrosine (Y)-Regulated Kinase 1A (DYRK1A) is a protein kinase encoded by a dosage-dependent gene. An extra copy of DYRK1A contributes to Down syndrome (DS) pathogenesis while loss of one allele causes severe mental retardation and autism. DYRK1A is involved in phosphorylation of several proteins that regulate cell cycle control and tumor suppression. However, the function and regulation of this kinase is not well understood and current knowledge does not fully explain dosage-dependent function of this important kinase. Our previous proteomic studies identified several novel DYRK1A interacting proteins including RNF169, FAM117B, TROAP, LZTS1, LZTS2 and DCAF7. In this …


Characterization Of The Tsc/Dyrk1a Interaction, Supriya Joshi Jan 2020

Characterization Of The Tsc/Dyrk1a Interaction, Supriya Joshi

Theses and Dissertations

The Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) includes TSC1, TSC2 and the TBC1D7 subunits that together function as a principal inhibitor of the mTOR protein kinase complex 1 (mTORC1). mTORC1 is a master regulator of cell growth and proliferation that responds to signaling cues such as growth factors and nutrient availability. Proteomic studies in our lab revealed an interaction between the TSC subunits and DYRK1A, a ubiquitous protein kinase encoded by a gene located in the Down syndrome (DS) region on human chr21. In this study, we sought to validate the interaction of the TSC components with DYRK1A and to determine the …


Mathematical Models Of Cellular Signaling And Supramolecular Self-Assembly, Pratip Rana Jan 2020

Mathematical Models Of Cellular Signaling And Supramolecular Self-Assembly, Pratip Rana

Theses and Dissertations

Synthetic biologists endeavor to predict how the increasing complexity of multi-step signaling cascades impacts the fidelity of molecular signaling, whereby cellular state information is often transmitted with proteins diffusing by a pseudo-one-dimensional stochastic process. We address this problem by using a one-dimensional drift-diffusion model to derive an approximate lower bound on the degree of facilitation needed to achieve single-bit informational efficiency in signaling cascades as a function of their length. We find that a universal curve of the Shannon-Hartley form describes the information transmitted by a signaling chain of arbitrary length and depends upon only a small number of physically …


Mef2-Bound Genes May Influence Ethanol Sedation In Drosophila Melanogaster, Katlyn M. Myers Jan 2020

Mef2-Bound Genes May Influence Ethanol Sedation In Drosophila Melanogaster, Katlyn M. Myers

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a global health issue that affects millions of people every year. This disorder has serious negative mental and physical consequences. Currently, treatment options for this disorder are largely limited to psychological therapy, with very few medications available to treat it. Being able to identify the environmental and genetic components that influence AUD can help improve diagnosis and treatment options. Previous studies in humans have shown a link between initial sensitivity and risk for alcohol abuse. Our laboratory uses Drosophila melanogaster as a model to study the genetic and environmental components of alcohol-related behaviors. Previous lab …


The Gamma-Globin Repressors Klf1, Bcl11a, And Mbd2: Knowledge Gaps In The Literature, Lauren Nufer Jan 2020

The Gamma-Globin Repressors Klf1, Bcl11a, And Mbd2: Knowledge Gaps In The Literature, Lauren Nufer

Theses and Dissertations

β-hemoglobinopathies affect millions of people around the world. Research into treatments for these conditions has focused on methods to increase γ-globin expression, because increased levels of γ-globin ameliorate or reduce the severity of symptoms. As more and more studies have been done, a few proteins have emerged as having crucial roles in γ-globin repression and have been established as key genes to study. These are Krüppel-like factor 1 (KLF1), B cell CLL/lymphoma 11A (BCL11A), and methyl binding domain 2 (MBD2). The roles of these proteins in the switch from fetal to adult hemoglobin and in repressing γ-globin expression have been …


The Role Of Manganese In Streptococcus Sanguinis, Tanya M. Puccio Jan 2020

The Role Of Manganese In Streptococcus Sanguinis, Tanya M. Puccio

Theses and Dissertations

Streptococcus sanguinis is primarily associated with oral health as a commensal bacterium. As an opportunistic pathogen, S. sanguinis is capable of colonizing heart valve vegetations, leading to the disease infective endocarditis. Previous studies from our lab have identified the high-affinity manganese transporter SsaACB as important for endocarditis virulence. The impact that manganese depletion has on S. sanguinis had never been evaluated and a secondary manganese transporter has not been identified. Thus, we employed the use of a fermentor to control large-scale growth over time and depleted manganese in an ΔssaACB mutant using a metal chelator, EDTA. The changes in …


Transcriptomic Profiling Of Postmortem Prefrontal Cortex And Nucleus Accumbens From Chronic Alcohol Abusers., Eric S. Vornholt Jan 2020

Transcriptomic Profiling Of Postmortem Prefrontal Cortex And Nucleus Accumbens From Chronic Alcohol Abusers., Eric S. Vornholt

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a debilitating psychiatric illness that develops from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. While it is well documented that AUD is heritable, the shift from recreational alcohol use to abuse/dependence is poorly understood. In this dissertation, using postmortem brain tissue from individuals with alcohol dependence (AD), we profiled the genome-wide expression of circular RNA (circRNA), microRNA (miRNA), and messenger RNA (mRNA) to better understand the impact of gene expression on the development of AUD. To achieve this, we performed two independent studies that explore transcriptome differences between AD cases and controls. The first of …


Epigenetic Regulation Of Drug Metabolizing Enzymes In Normal Aging, Mohamad M. Kronfol Jan 2020

Epigenetic Regulation Of Drug Metabolizing Enzymes In Normal Aging, Mohamad M. Kronfol

Theses and Dissertations

Geriatric populations are at a higher risk for adverse drug reactions (ADRs). This may be partly due to changes in drug metabolism in old age, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Prior research in humans and mice has shown age-associated changes to the expression of several genes involved in drug metabolism. Furthermore, studies of human blood showed that epigenetic regulation of genes encoding drug metabolizing enzymes change with age. However, it is unknown if genes in the liver are similarly affected. Therefore, we hypothesize that genes encoding drug metabolizing enzymes may show differential epigenetic regulation in the liver with …