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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Identification Of A Rickettsial Endosymbiont In A Soft Tick Ornithodoros Turicata Americanus, Lichao Liu, Daniel E. Sonenshine, Hameeda Sultana, Girish Neelakanta Jan 2022

Identification Of A Rickettsial Endosymbiont In A Soft Tick Ornithodoros Turicata Americanus, Lichao Liu, Daniel E. Sonenshine, Hameeda Sultana, Girish Neelakanta

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Bacterial endosymbionts are abundantly found in both hard and soft ticks. Occidentia massiliensis, a rickettsial endosymbiont, was first identified in the soft tick Ornithodoros sonrai collected from Senegal and later was identified in a hard tick Africaniella transversale. In this study, we noted the presence of Occidentia species, designated as Occidentia-like species, in a soft tick O. turicata americanus. Sequencing and phylogenetic analyses of the two genetic markers, 16S rRNA and groEL confirmed the presence of Occidentia-like species in O. turicata americanus ticks. The Occidentia-like species was noted to be present in all developmental stages …


Blubber Transciptome Response To Acute Stress Axis Activation Involves Transient Charges In Adipogenesis And Lipolysis In Fast-Adapted Marine Mammal, J. I. Khudyakov, C. D. Champagne, L. M. Meneghetti, D. E. Crocker Feb 2017

Blubber Transciptome Response To Acute Stress Axis Activation Involves Transient Charges In Adipogenesis And Lipolysis In Fast-Adapted Marine Mammal, J. I. Khudyakov, C. D. Champagne, L. M. Meneghetti, D. E. Crocker

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Stress can compromise an animal's ability to conserve metabolic stores and participate in energy-demanding activities that are critical for fitness. Understanding how wild animals, especially those already experiencing physiological extremes (e.g. fasting), regulate stress responses is critical for evaluating the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance on physiology and fitness, key challenges for conservation. However, studies of stress in wildlife are often limited to baseline endocrine measurements and few have investigated stress effects in fasting-adapted species. We examined downstream molecular consequences of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation by exogenous adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) in blubber of northern elephant seals due to the ease of …


The Intervening Sequence Of Coxiella Burnetii: Characterization And Evolution, Indu Warrier, Mathias C. Walter, Dimitrios Frangoulidis, Rahul Raghavan, Linda D. Hicks, Michael F. Minnick Jan 2016

The Intervening Sequence Of Coxiella Burnetii: Characterization And Evolution, Indu Warrier, Mathias C. Walter, Dimitrios Frangoulidis, Rahul Raghavan, Linda D. Hicks, Michael F. Minnick

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The intervening sequence (IVS) of Coxiella burnetii, the agent of Q fever, is a 428-nt selfish genetic element located in helix 45 of the precursor 23S rRNA. The IVS element, in turn, contains an ORF that encodes a hypothetical ribosomal S23 protein (S23p). Although S23p can be synthesized in vitro in the presence of an engineered E. coli promoter and ribosome binding site, results suggest that the protein is not synthesized in vivo. In spite of a high degree of IVS conservation among different strains of C. burnetii, the region immediately upstream of the S23p start codon is prone to …


Insights Into The Development And Evolution Of Exaggerated Traits Using De Novo Transcriptomes Of Two Species Of Horned Scarab Beetles, Ian A. Warren, J. Cristobal Vera, Annika Johns, Robert Zinna, James H. Marden, Douglas J. Emlen, Ian Dworkin, Laura C. Lavine Feb 2014

Insights Into The Development And Evolution Of Exaggerated Traits Using De Novo Transcriptomes Of Two Species Of Horned Scarab Beetles, Ian A. Warren, J. Cristobal Vera, Annika Johns, Robert Zinna, James H. Marden, Douglas J. Emlen, Ian Dworkin, Laura C. Lavine

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Scarab beetles exhibit an astonishing variety of rigid exo-skeletal outgrowths, known as ‘‘horns’’. These traits are often sexually dimorphic and vary dramatically across species in size, shape, location, and allometry with body size. In many species, the horn exhibits disproportionate growth resulting in an exaggerated allometric relationship with body size, as compared to other traits, such as wings, that grow proportionately with body size. Depending on the species, the smallest males either do not produce a horn at all, or they produce a disproportionately small horn for their body size. While the diversity of horn shapes and their behavioural ecology …


Regulation Of The Vapbc-1 Toxin-Antitoxin Locus In Nontypeable Haemophilus Influenzae, Susan D. Cline, Sehresh Saleem, Dayle A. Daines Mar 2012

Regulation Of The Vapbc-1 Toxin-Antitoxin Locus In Nontypeable Haemophilus Influenzae, Susan D. Cline, Sehresh Saleem, Dayle A. Daines

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) are human-adapted commensal bacteria that can cause a number of chronic mucosal infections, including otitis media and bronchitis. One way for these organisms to survive antibiotic therapy and cause recurrent disease is to stop replicating, as most antimicrobials target essential biosynthetic pathways. Toxin-antitoxin (TA) gene pairs have been shown to facilitate entry into a reversible bacteriostatic state. Characteristically, these operons encode a protein toxin and an antitoxin that associate following translation to form a nontoxic complex, which then binds to and regulates the cognate TA promoter. Under stressful conditions, the labile antitoxin is degraded and the …


The Drosophila Melanogaster Rad54 Homolog, Dmrad54, Is Involved In The Repair Of Radiation Damage And Recombination, Rolf Kooistra, José B. M. Zonneveld, Anja De Jong, Jan C. J. Eeken, Chris J. Osgood, Jean-Marie Buerstedde, Paul H. M. Lohman, Albert Pastink Jan 1997

The Drosophila Melanogaster Rad54 Homolog, Dmrad54, Is Involved In The Repair Of Radiation Damage And Recombination, Rolf Kooistra, José B. M. Zonneveld, Anja De Jong, Jan C. J. Eeken, Chris J. Osgood, Jean-Marie Buerstedde, Paul H. M. Lohman, Albert Pastink

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The RAD54 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae plays a crucial role in recombinational repair of double-strand breaks in DNA. Here the isolation and functional characterization of the RAD54 homolog of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, DmRAD54, are described. The putative Dmrad54 protein displays 46 to 57% identity to its homologs from yeast and mammals. DmRAD54 RNA was detected at all stages of fly development, but an increased level was observed in early embryos and ovarian tissue. To determine the function of DmRAD54, a null mutant was isolated by random mutagenesis. DmRAD54-deficient flies develop normally, but the females …