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Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience

Characterizing The Roles Of The Variable Linker And Hub Domains In Camkii Activation, Noelle Dziedzic Feb 2023

Characterizing The Roles Of The Variable Linker And Hub Domains In Camkii Activation, Noelle Dziedzic

Doctoral Dissertations

Learning and memory formation at the cellular level involves decoding complex electrochemical signals between nerve cells, or neurons. Understanding these processes at the molecular level requires a comprehensive study of calcium-sensitive proteins that serve as signal mediators within cells. More specifically, the protein calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) is a key regulator of downstream cellular signaling events in the brain, playing an important role in long term memory formation. CaMKII is encoded in humans on four different genes: alpha, beta, gamma and delta. For added complexity, each of these gene products can be alternatively spliced and translated into multiple protein …


Chemical Biology-Based Probes For The Labeling Of Targets On Live Cells, Amanda M. Hussey Nov 2015

Chemical Biology-Based Probes For The Labeling Of Targets On Live Cells, Amanda M. Hussey

Doctoral Dissertations

Proper detection is the key to studying any processes on the cellular scale. Nowhere is this more evident than in the tight space which confines the synaptic cleft. Being able to ascertain the location of receptors on live neurons is fundamental to our understanding of not only how these receptors interact and move inside the cell but also how neurons function. Most detection methods rely on significantly altering the receptor; both tagging with a fluorescent protein or targeting the receptor by a fluorescent reporter in the form of a small molecule causes significant difficulties. These localization techniques often result in …


Functional Analysis Of Corazonin And Its Receptor In Drosophila Melanogaster, Kai Sha Aug 2013

Functional Analysis Of Corazonin And Its Receptor In Drosophila Melanogaster, Kai Sha

Doctoral Dissertations

Corazonin (Crz) is an amidated undecapeptide originally isolated from the American cockroach. It has been shown to affect diverse physiological functions in a species-specific manner. However, the functionality of Crz in Drosophila melanogaster has not yet been determined. To gain insight into the role of Crz signaling in vivo, Crz and CrzR null alleles were obtained by transposable element mobilization. Flies carrying a deficiency uncovering Crz and pr-set7 loci were generated via P-element excision, and the latter was rescued by wild-type pr-set7 transgene. A mutation of Crz receptor (CrzR) was generated by Minos-element mobilization from …