Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Genetics and Genomics
Functional Analysis Of Microrna Pathway Genes In The Somatic Gonad And Germ Cells During Ovulation In C. Elegans, Carmela Rios
Functional Analysis Of Microrna Pathway Genes In The Somatic Gonad And Germ Cells During Ovulation In C. Elegans, Carmela Rios
Dissertations (1934 -)
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that play critical roles in animal development and physiology, though functions for most miRNAs remain unknown. Worms with reduced miRNA biogenesis due to loss of Drosha or Pasha/DGCR8 activity are sterile and fail to ovulate, indicating that miRNAs are required for the process of oocyte maturation and ovulation. Starting with this penetrant sterile phenotype and using new strains created to perform tissue-specific RNAi, we characterize the roles of the C. elegans Pasha, pash-1, and two miRNA-specific Argonautes, alg-1 and alg-2, in somatic gonad cells and in germ cells in the regulation of …
Identifying Regulators From Multiple Types Of Biological Data In Cancer, Brittany Baur
Identifying Regulators From Multiple Types Of Biological Data In Cancer, Brittany Baur
Dissertations (1934 -)
Cancer genomes accumulate alterations that promote cancer cell proliferation and survival. Structural, genetic and epigenetic alterations that have a selective advantage for tumorigenesis affect key regulatory genes and microRNAs that in turn regulate the expression of many target genes. The goal of this dissertation is to leverage the alteration-rich landscape of cancer genomes to detect key regulatory genes and microRNAs. To this end, we designed a feature selection algorithm to identify DNA methylation signals around a gene that would highly predict its expression. We found that genes whose expression could be predicted by DNA methylation accurately were enriched in Gene …