Biotechnology Commons^™

Cgste11 Mediates Cross Tolerance To Multiple Environmental Stressors In Candida Glabrata, Mian Huang, Jibran Khan, Manpreet Kaur, Julian Daniel Torres Vanega, Orlando Andres Aguilar Patiño, Anand Ramasubramanian, Katy Kao

Faculty Publications

Candida glabrata is a human commensal and an opportunistic human fungal pathogen. It is more closely related to the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae than other Candida spp. Compared with S. cerevisiae, C. glabrata exhibits higher innate tolerance to various environmental stressors, including hyperthermal stress. Here we investigate the molecular mechanisms of C. glabrata adaptation to heat stress via adaptive laboratory evolution. We show that all parallel evolved populations readily adapt to hyperthermal challenge (from 47 °C to 50 °C) and exhibit convergence in evolved phenotypes with extensive cross-tolerance to various other environmental stressors such as oxidants, acids, and alcohols. Genome …

Label-Free Microrna Optical Biosensors, Meimei Lai, Gymama Slaughter

Bioelectrics Publications

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play crucial roles in regulating gene expression. Many studies show that miRNAs have been linked to almost all kinds of disease. In addition, miRNAs are well preserved in a variety of specimens, thereby making them ideal biomarkers for biosensing applications when compared to traditional protein biomarkers. Conventional biosensors for miRNA require fluorescent labeling, which is complicated, time-consuming, laborious, costly, and exhibits low sensitivity. The detection of miRNA remains a big challenge due to their intrinsic properties such as small sizes, low abundance, and high sequence similarity. A label-free biosensor can simplify the assay and enable the direct detection …

Development Of A Sonically Powered Biodegradable Nanogenerator For Bone Regeneration, Avi S. Patel

University Scholar Projects

Background: Reconstruction of bone fractures and defects remains a big challenge in orthopedic surgery. While regenerative engineering has advanced the field greatly using a combination of biomaterial scaffolds and stem cells, one matter of difficulty is inducing osteogenesis in these cells. Recent works have shown electricity’s ability to promote osteogenesis in stem cell lines when seeded in bone scaffolds; however, typical electrical stimulators are either (a) externally housed and require overcomplex percutaneous wires be connected to the implanted scaffold or (b) implanted non-degradable devices which contain toxic batteries and require invasive removal surgeries.

Objective: Here, we establish a biodegradable, piezoelectric …

Metabolomics Of Sorghum Roots During Nitrogen Stress Reveals Compromised Metabolic Capacity For Salicylic Acid Biosynthesis, Amy M. Sheflin, Dawn Chiniquy, Chaohui Yuan, Emily Goren, Indrajit Kumar, Max Braud, Thomas Brutnell, Andrea L. Eveland, Susannah Tringe, Peng Liu, Stephen Kresovich, Ellen Marsh, Daniel P. Schachtman, Jessica E. Prenni

Nebraska Center for Biotechnology: Faculty and Staff Publications

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) is the fifth most productive cereal crop worldwide with some hybrids having high biomass yield traits making it promising for sustainable, economical biofuel production. To maximize biofuel feedstock yields, a more complete understanding of metabolic responses to low nitrogen (N) will be useful for incorporation in crop improvement efforts. In this study, 10 diverse sorghum entries (including inbreds and hybrids) were field-grown under low and full N conditions and roots were sampled at two time points for metabolomics and 16S amplicon sequencing. Roots of plants grown under low N showed altered metabolic profiles at …

The Small Rna Teg41 Regulates Expression Of The Alpha Phenol-Soluble Modulins And Is Required For Virulence In Staphylococcus Aureus, Rachel L. Zapf, Richard E. Wiemels, Rebecca A. Keogh, Donald L. Holzschu, Kayla M. Howell, Emily Trzeciak, Andrew R. Caillet, Kellie A. King, Samantha A. Selhorst, Michael J. Naldrett, Jeffrey L. Bose, Ronan K. Carroll

Nebraska Center for Biotechnology: Faculty and Staff Publications

Small RNAs (sRNAs) remain an understudied class of regulatory molecules in bacteria in general and in Gram-positive bacteria in particular. In the major human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, hundreds of sRNAs have been identified; however, only a few have been characterized in detail. In this study, we investigate the role of the sRNA Teg41 in S. aureus virulence. We demonstrate that Teg41, an sRNA divergently transcribed from the locus that encodes the cytolytic alpha phenolsoluble modulin (αPSM) peptides, plays a critical role in αPSM production. Overproduction of Teg41 leads to an increase in αPSM levels and a corresponding increase in …

Terpene Synthase Genes Originated From Bacteria Through Horizontal Gene Transfer Contribute To Terpenoid Diversity In Fungi, Qidong Jia, Xinlu Chen, Tobias G. Kollner, Jan Rinkel, Jianyu Fu, Jessy Labbe, Wangdan Xiong, Jeroen S. Dickschat, Jonathan Gershenzon, Feng Chen

Nebraska Center for Biotechnology: Faculty and Staff Publications

Fungi are successful eukaryotes of wide distribution. They are known as rich producers of secondary metabolites, especially terpenoids, which are important for fungi-environment interactions. Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is an important mechanism contributing to genetic innovation of fungi. However, it remains unclear whether HGT has played a role in creating the enormous chemical diversity of fungal terpenoids. Here we report that fungi have acquired terpene synthase genes (TPSs), which encode pivotal enzymes for terpenoid biosynthesis, from bacteria through HGT. Phylogenetic analysis placed the majority of fungal and bacterial TPS genes from diverse taxa into two clades, indicating ancient …

Mechanisms And Immunogenicity Of Nspef-Induced Cell Death In B16f10 Melanoma Tumors, Alessandra Rossi, Olga N. Pakhomova, Andrei G. Pakhomov, Samantha Weygandt, Anna A. Bulysheva, Len E. Murray, Peter A. Mollica, Claudia Muratori

Bioelectrics Publications

Accumulating data indicates that some cancer treatments can restore anticancer immunosurveillance through the induction of tumor immunogenic cell death (ICD). Nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEF) have been shown to efficiently ablate melanoma tumors. In this study we investigated the mechanisms and immunogenicity of nsPEF-induced cell death in B16F10 melanoma tumors. Our data show that in vitro nsPEF (20-200, 200-ns pulses, 7 kV/cm, 2 Hz) caused a rapid dose-dependent cell death which was not accompanied by caspase activation or PARP cleavage. The lack of nsPEF-induced apoptosis was confirmed in vivo in B16F10 tumors. NsPEF also failed to trigger ICD-linked responses such …

Delineating The Role Of Fanca In Glucose-Stimulated Insulin Secretion In Β Cells Through Its Protein Interactome, Dragana Lagundzin, Wen-Feng Hu, Henry C. H. Law, Kimiko L. Krieger, Fangfang Qiao, Emalie J. Clement, Andjela T. Drincic, Olgica Nedic, Michael J. Naldrett, Sophie Alvarez, Nicholas T. Woods

Nebraska Center for Biotechnology: Faculty and Staff Publications

Hyperinsulinemia affects 72% of Fanconi anemia (FA) patients and an additional 25% experience lowered glucose tolerance or frank diabetes. The underlying molecular mechanisms contributing to the dysfunction of FA pancreas β cells is unknown. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the functional role of FANCA, the most commonly mutated gene in FA, in glucosestimulated insulin secretion (GSIS). This study reveals that FANCA or FANCB knockdown impairs GSIS in human pancreas β cell line EndoC-βH3. To identify potential pathways by which FANCA might regulate GSIS, we employed a proteomics approach to identify FANCA protein interactions in EndoC-βH3 differentially regulated in response to …

Capital Efficiency For Development Stage Biotech-Based Firms: An Ipo Perspective, Mark J. Ahn, Amir Shaygan

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Access to multiple tranches of capital is critical for predominantly no revenue development stage biotech firms. While financing needs are monotonically increasing over multiple years in the product development approval cycle, the market for high risk, milestone driven biotech investment is significantly more volatile than the financial markets as a whole. In this paper, we analyzed the role and relative importance of global biotech IPOs, as well as other sources of capital such as strategic alliances, for research and development funding. We also explored and assessed the degree of mismatch between the access to capital, operational efficiencies, and how firms …