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Full-Text Articles in Other Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology

The Effects Of Largazole, A Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor, On Breast Cancer Cell Viability And Metastasis, Hannah Mccowan May 2020

The Effects Of Largazole, A Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor, On Breast Cancer Cell Viability And Metastasis, Hannah Mccowan

Honors Theses

Histone deacetylase enzymes modify epigenetic characteristics of a genome by removing acetyl groups from histone proteins in chromatin. Histone deacetylase inhibitors work by stopping this activity which can have various results in a cell including apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, differentiation, and migration. The purpose of these experiments was to see how largazole, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, affected cell viability for breast cancer and associated metastatic cell lines in both normoxic and hypoxic conditions. The experiment was completed by setting up two 96-well plates with varying concentrations of largazole and conducting a sulforhodamine viability assay. The specific cell lines used in …


A Study Of The Antioxidant Versus Pro-Oxidant Nature Of The Amyloid Beta Peptide And An Analysis Of The Natural Products, Isorhamnetin And Narignenin, As Antioxidants, Kaylee Holmes Apr 2020

A Study Of The Antioxidant Versus Pro-Oxidant Nature Of The Amyloid Beta Peptide And An Analysis Of The Natural Products, Isorhamnetin And Narignenin, As Antioxidants, Kaylee Holmes

Honors Theses

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder with no cure. Due to the widespread effects of this disease, abundant research efforts have gone towards finding a cure. The amyloid beta (Ab) peptide has been shown to be a potential cause of the disease due to destructive effects on tissues that it can have both by itself and through reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. This study was performed in order to assess the structural properties of Ab42monomers, fibrils and oligomers, to assess the antioxidant versus pro-oxidant behavior of the Ab peptide, and to assess the antioxidant nature of the natural …


Expression Of Glycine-Rich Proteins Found In Salivary Glands Of The Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma Americanum) Using A Mammalian Cell Line, Annabelle Clark Dec 2016

Expression Of Glycine-Rich Proteins Found In Salivary Glands Of The Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma Americanum) Using A Mammalian Cell Line, Annabelle Clark

Honors Theses

Ticks play an important ecological role as well as a growing role in human health and veterinary care. Ticks are hosts to a plethora of microbial pathogens that can be transferred during feeding to cause tick-borne diseases in humans and many animals. Ticks may in large part owe the success of the transfer of these pathogens between hosts to their complex saliva. The saliva secreted upon a tick’s attachment to a host serves the following, among other, functions: anti-hemostasis of the blood pool, preventing an inflammatory response at the bite site, and serving as a natural anti-microbial substance. An important …


Effects Of Creatine, Leucine, And Ethanol On Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor In C2c12 Skeletal Muscle Cells, Daniel Waters Apr 2016

Effects Of Creatine, Leucine, And Ethanol On Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor In C2c12 Skeletal Muscle Cells, Daniel Waters

Honors Theses

Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) is a protein expressed throughout the mammalian nervous system that serves several protective functions. Originally discovered in the brain, where it supports the survival of dopaminergic neurons, GDNF has since been shown to be expressed in skeletal muscle and is vital for the maintenance of motor neurons. The relationship between muscle hypertrophy, and GDNF is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between hypertrophy and GDNF by inducing hypertrophy in C2C12 skeletal muscle cells using leucine and creatine, inhibiting hypertrophy using ethanol and measuring GDNF content. As measured …


A Guided Inquiry To The Bromination Of Alkenes: An Effort To Foster Student Understanding Of Thin Layer Chromatography In The Organic Chemistry Laboratory, Casey Wright Apr 2016

A Guided Inquiry To The Bromination Of Alkenes: An Effort To Foster Student Understanding Of Thin Layer Chromatography In The Organic Chemistry Laboratory, Casey Wright

Honors Theses

Many of the chemistry laboratories taught at Western Michigan University are “cookbook” labs, meaning that students are given an instruction manual with a prescribed set of instructions and a predicted outcome. Therein we present an introductory organic chemistry laboratory experiment to reinforce the student understanding of Thin Layer Chromatography which utilizes a guided inquiry format as part of an effort to move toward discovery based learning in our organic chemistry curriculum. Educational research was performed on classroom artifacts collected from the laboratory. We were able to gain an understanding of the struggles students face in applying general chemistry content knowledge …


Expression Analysis Of A Glucose Oxidase Transgene In Tobacco, Jordan Burt Jan 2015

Expression Analysis Of A Glucose Oxidase Transgene In Tobacco, Jordan Burt

Honors Theses

Glucose oxidase (GOX) is an enzyme in plants that catalyzes the oxidation of glucose to hydrogen peroxide and Glucono delta-lactone[5]. We have expressed GOX under the control of an estrogen inducible system, XVE, to analyze the gene's expression under this system compared to a system using the 35s system. The 35s system contains a promoter that constitutively turns on the GOX gene in the Nicotiana tabacum plant which causes the gene to always be turned on. Leaf disc assays were performed with discs from 35s, XVE, and also wild type plants (not containing the GOX gene) in order to extract …