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Full-Text Articles in Cell and Developmental Biology

Genetic Regulation Of Müllerian Duct Regression, Malcolm Moses May 2023

Genetic Regulation Of Müllerian Duct Regression, Malcolm Moses

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Mammals, including humans, develop progenitor tissues for both male and female reproductive tract organs before they fully differentiate into a male or female tract. The progenitor tissue for the male reproductive tract is known as the Wolffian duct (WD), and the progenitor tissue for the female reproductive tract is the Müllerian duct (MD). The WD further differentiates into the vas deferens, epididymis, and seminal vesicle, while the MD differentiates into the oviduct, uterus and upper vagina. An essential step in sex differentiation for males is the regression of the MD. This regression initiates with anti-Müllerian hormone (Amh) transcription …


Investigating The Role Of Chd7 And Sox11 In Retinal Cell Development And The Ocular Complications Of Charge Syndrome, Laura Krueger Jan 2022

Investigating The Role Of Chd7 And Sox11 In Retinal Cell Development And The Ocular Complications Of Charge Syndrome, Laura Krueger

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Proper formation of the visual system requires the precise interaction of several embryonic cell lineages, including the neuroectoderm (forms the retina and retinal pigment epithelium), surface ectoderm (forms the lens), mesoderm and cranial neural crest cells (form the ocular blood vessels and anterior ocular structures). When this process is disrupted structural birth defects such as coloboma result, leading to pediatric visual deficits. Ocular developmental defects are often present in larger syndromic disorders. One example is CHARGE syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by coloboma, heart defects, choanal atresia, growth retardation, genital abnormalities, and ear abnormalities. Pathogenic variants in CHD7 have been …


The Genome-Wide Roles Of The Lung Lineage Transcription Factor Nkx2-1 In The Regulation Of Opposing Cell Fates In Vivo, Danielle Renae Little Dec 2020

The Genome-Wide Roles Of The Lung Lineage Transcription Factor Nkx2-1 In The Regulation Of Opposing Cell Fates In Vivo, Danielle Renae Little

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Lineage transcription factors mark, promote, and maintain multiple distinct cell types originating from a common progenitor. Despite their essential role, how such factors function and bind genome wide to orchestrate the epigenetic changes necessary to form and maintain these identities in vivo is unclear. One lineage transcription factor NK Homeobox 2-1 (NKX2-1) is expressed throughout the lung epithelium during development and was thought to be lost in the extraordinarily thin cell type required for gas exchange– the alveolar type 1 (AT1) cell. Complementing precise genetic knockouts with cell type-specific ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, and scRNA-seq, our study shows that AT1 and AT2 …


Fgf20 In Olfactory System And Cochlea Development, Lu Morgan Yang May 2020

Fgf20 In Olfactory System And Cochlea Development, Lu Morgan Yang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The olfactory epithelium (OE) is a neurosensory organ required for the sense of smell. Turbinates, bony projections from the nasal cavity wall, increase the surface area within the nasal cavity lined by the OE. We identified a population of OE progenitor cells that expand horizontally during development to populate all lineages of the mature OE and increase OE surface area. We show that these Fgf20-positive, epithelium-spanning progenitor (FEP) cells are responsive to Wnt/β-Catenin signaling. Wnt signaling suppresses FEP cell differentiation into OE basal progenitors and their progeny, and positively regulates Fgf20 expression. We further show that FGF20 signals to the …


Developmental Mechanisms For The Diversification Of Polyphenic Morphs In The Head Horn Of Onthophagine Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae Onthophagus Taurus): Plasticity Through Nutrition, Logan Paul Zeigler Jan 2020

Developmental Mechanisms For The Diversification Of Polyphenic Morphs In The Head Horn Of Onthophagine Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae Onthophagus Taurus): Plasticity Through Nutrition, Logan Paul Zeigler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Developmental plasticity is the phenotypic variation between organisms that is caused by environmental interactions affecting the developmental systems of organisms. The research focused primarily on nutrition-responsive developmental plasticity. In this research we used the nutritionally determined head horn development of Onthophagus taurus to better understand the developmental mechanisms and genetic underpinnings of nutrition-responsive trait development. We focused specifically on altering the availability of specific nutrition-related primary metabolites, cholesterol and palmitic acid, identified in the activity of The Hedgehog pathway, a critical pathway in head horn development. By altering diet composition using cholesterol, reducing transcript expression of an acyltransferase gene, rasp …


The Effects Of Internal Physiology On Polyphenic Horn Development In The Dung Beetle Onthophagus Taurus, Naomi Garrett Williamson Jan 2020

The Effects Of Internal Physiology On Polyphenic Horn Development In The Dung Beetle Onthophagus Taurus, Naomi Garrett Williamson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

An organism’s phenotype can be affected in development by alterations to gene expression based on environmental inputs. Nutrition is one such environmental input and the central regulator of development of large horn or small horn phenotypes in the dung beetle species, Onthophagus taurus. However, little is known about the nature of chemical compounds that are critical to this plastic horn development. To better understand these compounds, we are utilizing an untargeted metabolomic approach as well as a targeted gene approach. Through the metabolomic approach, it was uncovered that environmental conditions tend to have a greater impact on metabolomic composition …


Exploring Infant Leukemia Through Exome Sequencing And An In Vitro Model Of Hematopoietic Development, Mark Cannon Valentine May 2019

Exploring Infant Leukemia Through Exome Sequencing And An In Vitro Model Of Hematopoietic Development, Mark Cannon Valentine

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cancer is a heterogeneous disease with myriad causes and outcomes. Many of the cancers that occur in adult populations have become increasingly well characterized with the advent of affordable high-throughput sequencing. These studies have revealed that cancer is largely a disease of somatic mutation in the adult population. In strong contrast to this, childhood cancers have an exceedingly low rate of somatic mutation. At the extreme end of this spectrum is Infant Leukemia (IL). Sequencing of IL has revealed that these tumors frequently have one or fewer somatic SNP. In the absence of a somatic explanation for IL, many other …


Evolvability Of The Skull: A Study Of Genetic Basis And Integration In The Teleost Craniofacial Skeleton, Yinan Hu Mar 2016

Evolvability Of The Skull: A Study Of Genetic Basis And Integration In The Teleost Craniofacial Skeleton, Yinan Hu

Doctoral Dissertations

As the field of evolutionary biology pivots away from a gene-centric view of how adaptive evolution proceeds, renewed emphasis is placed on the origin of phenotypic variation. Understanding the developmental processes that underlie the production of novel traits, and how they might influence evolvability, is considered a primary goal in the on-going “extended evolutionary synthesis”. The following dissertation explores these questions in the context of adaptive radiations in fish, with a focus on morphological variation in the craniofacial skeleton. Specifically, the first chapter investigates the genetic and developmental basis of shape (co-)variation in the feeding apparatus of African cichlid fishes, …