Life Sciences Commons^™

A Multispecies Perspective Into Dietary Genetic Adaptations And Ancient Migration In The Peruvian Andes, Kelsey Jorgensen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Successful adaptation to the high-elevation Andes would have required both cultural and biological adaptations by early human populations. These past adaptations continue to shape the evolutionary outcomes of both humans and non-human species today. A multispecies perspective was used to examine how humans and non-human creatures, specifically insects, were shaped by past human adaptations. This dissertation asked two primary questions: 1) Given the importance and evolutionary history of potato consumption in the Peruvian Andes, is a genetic adaptation to better digest potato starch detectable in present-day Peruvians? and 2) Using the Andean Potato Weevil (APW) phylogeny as a proxy, what …

Stress-Dependent Regulation Of A Major Node Of The Insulin-Like Peptide Network That Modulates Survival, Rashmi Chandra

Wayne State University Dissertations

Chronic stress disrupts insulin signaling, predisposing human populations to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, and other metabolic and neurological disorders, including post-traumatic disorders (PTSD). Thus, efficient recovery from stress optimizes survival. However, stress recovery in humans is difficult to study, but is much easier to dissect in model organisms. The worm genetic model Caenorhabditis elegans can switch between stressed and non-stressed states, and this switch is largely regulated by insulin signaling. Previously, the Alcedo lab proposed that insulin-like peptides (ILPs), which exist as multiple members of a protein family in both C. elegans and humans, implements a combinatorial coding strategy …

Platyrrhine Phylogenetics With A Focus On Callitrichine Life History Adaptations, Natalie Mae Jameson

Wayne State University Dissertations

The life history of a species is highly impacted by their reproductive strategy. In my dissertation I address the changing reproductive strategies in callitrichine New World monkeys and their genetic underpinnings using a phylogenetic approach. The necessity for a resolved phylogeny is universal to any comparative genomic study. Here we have constructed a reliable phylogenetic framework from which reproductive strategy could be studied in callitrichines. First, to determine the most recent common ancestor of Anthropoid primates we took a phylogenomic approach, using the publicly available whole genome sequences of 17 mammal species. With high confidence, we determined here that Tarsier …

Insight Into Human Brain Evolution Through Phylogenetic Analysis And Comparative Genomics, Amy Marie Boddy

Wayne State University Dissertations

As a species, humans are often considered to be unique among mammals, with respect to their large brain size and enhanced cognitive abilities. Humans are the most encephalized mammals, with a brain that is six times larger than expected relative to body mass. Presumably, it is this high degree of encephalization that underlies our advanced cognitive abilities, including the skills needed for complex language and culture. Understanding how large brains evolved can shed light on what makes the human brain unique and introduce possible mechanism for human specific neurodegenerative diseases. This study takes a both a phenotypic and molecular approach …

Phylogenetic Utility Of Mitochondrial And Nuclear Genes: A Case Study In The Diptera (True Flies), Jason Caravas

Wayne State University Dissertations

The value of mitochondrial versus nuclear gene sequence data in phylogenetic analysis has received much attention without yielding definitive conclusions. Theoretical arguments and empirical data suggest a lower phylogenetic utility than equivalent nuclear gene sequences, but there are also many examples of important progress made using mitochondrial sequences. We therefore undertook a systematic performance analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear sequence partitions taken from a representative sample of dipteran species. For phylogenetic tree reconstruction, mitochondrial genes performed generally inferior to nuclear genes. However, the mitochondrial genes resolved branches for which nuclear genes failed. Moreover, the combined use of mitochondrial and nuclear …

Finite Element Reconstruction Of Real World Aortic Injury In Near-Side Lateral Automotive Crashes With Conceptual Countermeasures, Aditya Neelakanta Belwadi

Wayne State University Dissertations

Traumatic rupture of the aorta (TRA) remains the second most common cause of death associated with motor vehicle crashes after brain injury. On an average, nearly 8,000 people die annually in the United States due to blunt injury to the aorta. It is observed that more than 80% of occupants who suffer an aortic injury die at the scene due to exsanguination into the chest. With the advent of more accurate and established human body finite element (FE) models, FE crash reconstruction methods may become a valuable tool when assessing crash scenarios and occupant injury mechanisms.

The current study is …

Evolution Of Lactate Dehydrogenase Genes In Primates, With Special Consideration Of Nucleotide Organization In Mammalian Promoters, Zack Papper

Wayne State University Dissertations

Concomitant with an increase in brain volume and mass, the allocation of energetic resources to the brain increased during stem anthropoid evolution, leading to humans. One mechanism by which this allocation may have occurred is through greater use of lactate as a neuronal fuel. Both the production of lactate, and conversion to pyruvate for use in aerobic metabolism, are catalyzed, in part, by the tetrameric enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). The two primary LDH genes, LDHA and LDHB, confer different rates of substrate turnover to the LDH enzyme, and these rates lend to the argument that LDHA supports anaerobic while LDHB …

On The Phylogenetic Relationships Among Paenungulata And Within Elephantidae As Demonstrated By Molecular And Osteological Evidence, Jeheskel Shoshani

Wayne State University Dissertations

Paenungulata (=PAEN). A total of 182 non-dental morphological characters from 100 species (79 extant, 21 extinct; 98 mammals and 2 non-mammals) was analyzed by two maximum parsimony tree building algorithms. Parallel analyses of 2,258 pairwise immunodiffusion (IMDFN) comparisons with 16 chicken antisera on 101 mammalian species (representing 22 taxa) and of amino acid sequence data of alpha and beta hemoglobins and other published protein sequences were also conducted. Morphological and molecular results agree that Eutheria consists of five major clades and that rates of evolution are similar in the two approaches. Following are close relationships based on osteological results: (1) …