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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Functional And Physiological Role Of Extra-Hypothalamic Corticotropin Releasing Hormone Neurons In The Nucleus Of The Hippocampal Commissure In Regulation Of Stress Response, Hakeem Kadhim Dec 2020

Functional And Physiological Role Of Extra-Hypothalamic Corticotropin Releasing Hormone Neurons In The Nucleus Of The Hippocampal Commissure In Regulation Of Stress Response, Hakeem Kadhim

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) neurons located within the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) are known to be involved in regulation of stress responses. Recently, CRH neurons were identified above the PVN within the nucleus of the hippocampal commissure (NHpC) that located in the septum. We hypothesized that CRH neurons in the NHpC play a critical role in the stress response due to their rapid activation and could be a part of the traditional hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The dissertation addresses the role of 1) CRH expressing neurons in the NHpC compared with those within the PVN utilizing two different stressors, food deprivation (FD) …


Biogeography Of The Bovine Respiratory Microbiome And Its Relationship With Bovine Respiratory Disease, Jianmin Chai Dec 2020

Biogeography Of The Bovine Respiratory Microbiome And Its Relationship With Bovine Respiratory Disease, Jianmin Chai

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is the most common and costly disease in the beef cattle industry, leading to high morbidity, mortality and huge economic loss. Despite the recent advances in vaccination and antimicrobial techniques, no significant health-improved outcomes have developed. Due to a deep investigation of the microbiome, respiratory microbiotas are known to have important roles for host health and disease. However, BRD specific pathogens have not yet been identified since they are found in both healthy and diseased animals. A systemic and comprehensive study of the biogeography of the bovine respiratory microbiome and its relationship with BRD is lacking …


Examining Pathogenesis And Preventatives In Spontaneous And Staphylococcus-Induced Bacterial Chondronecrosis With Osteomyelitis In Broilers, Nnamdi Simon Ekesi Dec 2020

Examining Pathogenesis And Preventatives In Spontaneous And Staphylococcus-Induced Bacterial Chondronecrosis With Osteomyelitis In Broilers, Nnamdi Simon Ekesi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis is the most important cause of lameness in broilers. This is important to poultry production, as it poses animal welfare issues, and causes a significant loss in revenue. The remediation of this disease requires the study of its etiology with fitting models and evaluating preventatives. The research reported herein covers genomic virulence analysis of BCO isolates, mainly Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli retrieved from lame birds. We found that S. aureus isolates were closest to chicken strains in Europe but may have been in the Arkansas area for a decade. Phylogenomics suggest our S. aureus is …


The Surveillance Of Gastrointestinal Parasitic Nematodes Of Northwest Arkansas Dairy Cattle Using Traditional And Genetic Parasitological Identification Procedures, Eva M. Wray Dec 2020

The Surveillance Of Gastrointestinal Parasitic Nematodes Of Northwest Arkansas Dairy Cattle Using Traditional And Genetic Parasitological Identification Procedures, Eva M. Wray

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional and genetic parasitological identification procedures were compared using naturaland artificial nematode parasite infections in Holstein steer calves. The traditional parasitological procedures measured fecal egg counts, coprocultures with subsequent larval collection and adult nematodes collected at necropsy. The genetic identification procedures measured ITS-2 sequences extracted from different stages of nematode development: raw feces, concentrated nematode eggs, third stage larvae and adults. The primary nematodes observed were Cooperia oncophora, Cooperia punctata and Ostertagia ostertagi. The traditional techniques were not significantly different from one another, while the genetic sequencing showed variation amongst the different procedures. The raw feces sequences showed the most …


Design Of Hfgf1 Variant(S) With Increased Stability And Enhanced Bioactivity, Shilpi P. Agrawal Dec 2020

Design Of Hfgf1 Variant(S) With Increased Stability And Enhanced Bioactivity, Shilpi P. Agrawal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) are involved in various cellular processes such as cell growth,proliferation, differentiation, migration, angiogenesis, wound healing and embryonic development. Human acidic fibroblast growth factor (hFGF1) binds non-selectively to all the four FGF-receptors and is therefore considered as a powerful mitogen with broadest specificity. However, pharmacological applications of hFGF1 are restricted due to the low thermal stability of the growth factor. hFGF1 has low thermodynamic stability under physiological temperatures which leads to impairment of cellular signaling process thereby preventing its potential mitogenic properties. hFGF1 has a heparin binding pocket at the C-terminus which comprises of positively charges residues. …


Effect Of Feed Additives And Toxic Elements On Swine Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, Immune Function And Reproductive Performance, Richard A. Mudarra Hernández Dec 2020

Effect Of Feed Additives And Toxic Elements On Swine Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, Immune Function And Reproductive Performance, Richard A. Mudarra Hernández

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

To evaluate the effects of peptide in combination of zinc oxide (Zno) or acidifiers (Exp 1), and gossypol (G) from cottonseed meal (CSM) ( Exp 2&3) on growth performance, complete blood cell counts (Exp 1, 2&3), nutrient digestibility (Exp 1), plasma gossypol (Exp 2&3) and semen quality (Exp 3), weaned pigs (Exp 1), growing gilts (Exp 2) and growing boars (Exp 3) were randomly allotted to dietary treatments. Treatments for Exp 1 during phase 1&2 were: (1) Positive Control (PC), formulated to meet NRC (2012) nutrient requirements; (2) Negative control (NC), fish meal was reduced to achieve -0.13% SID lysine; …


Fate And Dissemination Of Salmonella Reading In Market-Age Turkeys At Processing Using Oral Gavage Challenge Model, Aaron Ashcraft Dec 2020

Fate And Dissemination Of Salmonella Reading In Market-Age Turkeys At Processing Using Oral Gavage Challenge Model, Aaron Ashcraft

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to evaluate the fate and dissemination of Salmonella Reading (SR) in market-age turkeys using an oral gavage challenge model. One hundred twenty-eight-week-old commercial turkey hens were moved from commercial production to research facilities. Upon arrival, a combination of enrofloxacin, 10 mg/kg, and florfenicol, 20 mg/kg, were orally administered sequentially before comingled placement on fresh pine shavings. Turkeys were challenged with 108 cfu SR by oral gavage on days 4 and 7 post-placement. Subsets were subjected to simulated commercial processing on days 14 (n=40), 21 (n=40) and 28 (n=32) post-placement (corresponding to 10, 11, and 12 weeks of …


Mitochondrial Contributions To Disuse Atrophy: Let’S Talk About Sex, Megan Rosa-Caldwell Jul 2020

Mitochondrial Contributions To Disuse Atrophy: Let’S Talk About Sex, Megan Rosa-Caldwell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Skeletal muscle atrophy is a hallmark of many pathologies and is associated with disease prognosis, quality of life, and mortality. Specifically, lack of contractile activity of the muscle can result in disuse-associated atrophy. Disuse-induced atrophy is a common phenomenon in intensive care unit (ICU) patients and significantly impacts patient prognosis and ability to transition of out of intensive care. However, effective therapeutics to mitigate disuse-associated atrophy do not exist, clearly demonstrating the scientific and clinical need to further understand mechanisms contributing to disuse atrophy. In particular, a significant portion of the scientific literature has utilized male models, yet there is …


Investigation Of The Role Of Heparin-Binding Pocket In Amyloid Fibrils Formation Of Fgf-1, I Gusti Ayu Agung Septiari Jul 2020

Investigation Of The Role Of Heparin-Binding Pocket In Amyloid Fibrils Formation Of Fgf-1, I Gusti Ayu Agung Septiari

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Human acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF/hFGF-1) is one of the promising molecules to be investigated to generate an in-depth understanding of the pathological mechanism of Alzheimer's disease (AD) neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the presence of amyloid fibrils. Some in vivo and human brain tissue studies proved the correlation of high-level expression of FGF-1-induced neuroinflammation and the occurrence of AD. The presence of amyloid fibrils as a hallmark of AD can be related to the generic property of the proteins to form amyloid fibrils; High level of FGF-1, in this case, may contribute to the formation of amyloid fibrils. As a …


Food Safety Risk In An Indoor Microgreen Cultivation System, Gina Marie Misra May 2020

Food Safety Risk In An Indoor Microgreen Cultivation System, Gina Marie Misra

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microgreens are immature sprouts of edible plants, sharing some similarities with sprouted seeds and petite leafy greens. Since they are most often grown in containers in buildings or greenhouses, they present a new area for food safety research at the intersection of the built environment and produce farming. Contamination by human pathogens has been extensively studied in other types of produce typically eaten raw, including sprouted seeds, which have been implicated in numerous outbreaks of salmonellosis over the last several decades. There is a paucity of knowledge about the microgreen sector of the fresh-cut industry; thus, it was determined that …


Cloning, Protein Expression, And Characterization Of Interleukin 1 Alpha, Musaab Habeeb Ali Al Ameer May 2020

Cloning, Protein Expression, And Characterization Of Interleukin 1 Alpha, Musaab Habeeb Ali Al Ameer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recombinant DNA technology and the ability to produce recombinant proteins have significantly changed the world of pharmaceutical market. Recombinant DNA technology using E. coli cells has successfully produced many therapeutic proteins. In this study, the designed tag Ark-RUBY-tag facilitates rapid, and reproducible purification of recombinant proteins expressed as inclusion bodies in E. coli cells. Purification of Ark-RUBY-fused recombinant protein(s) can be obtained by using imidazole fractions. Target protein can be easily removed from the Ark-RUBY-tag by enzymatic cleavage. Ark-RUBY-fused recombinant proteins can be quantitatively detected using polyclonal antibodies. Ark-RUBY-tag can be used to purify small peptides. By using Ark-RUBY-tag, purified …


Evaluation Of Anthelmintic Therapies In A Fall Calving Beef Cowherd, Laine Zammit May 2020

Evaluation Of Anthelmintic Therapies In A Fall Calving Beef Cowherd, Laine Zammit

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Internal parasitism inevitability prompts economic loss in beef cattle production by decreasing growth performance and reproductive traits. Today, the most widely used class of anthelmintic used to treat parasitism, is the macrocyclic lactone. Many studies have conflicting results on the efficacy of macrocyclic lactones (ML) efficacy against internal parasitism. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of moxidectin and eprinomectin, two of the MLs, on cow performance. Multiparous fall calving, crossbred beef cows (n = 106) were allocated randomly to 1 of 3 anthelmintic treatments: 1) Negative control (CON), in which cows did not receive an anthelmintic, …


The Discovery Of Metarhizium Anisopliae (Metchnikoff) Sorokin Isolates From Arkansas And Their Pathogenicity To Amblyomma Americanum L., Austin Goldsmith May 2020

The Discovery Of Metarhizium Anisopliae (Metchnikoff) Sorokin Isolates From Arkansas And Their Pathogenicity To Amblyomma Americanum L., Austin Goldsmith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The lone star tick Amblyomma americanum L. is the most abundant tick in Arkansas and has been implicated as a vector of many important disease-causing pathogens. Many species of entomopathogenic fungi have been isolated from several species of ticks, with some of these fungi being utilized for tick biocontrol. However, few studies have assessed the pathogenicity of entomopathogenic fungi to A. americanum. The objectives of this study were to: isolate and identify native Arkansas isolates of entomopathogenic fungi from wild A. americanum ticks exposed to soil and to compare the pathogenicity of one isolate (Metarhizium anisopliae (Metchnikoff) Sorokin isolate Savoy …


Associations Among Beef Cattle Genotypes, Neospora Caninum Infection, And Reproductive Performance, Ryan James Page May 2020

Associations Among Beef Cattle Genotypes, Neospora Caninum Infection, And Reproductive Performance, Ryan James Page

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reproductive performance is crucial for sustained financial success in the beef cattle industry. This dissertation includes a population study that quantified the incidence of Neospora caninum infections in the central region of the United States and tested its relationship with reproductive performance in beef cattle. Trial one of that study concluded that 6.9% of open, replacement heifers (n = 1306) tested seropositive. The second trial in that project found that 9.6% of the breeding age females (n = 500) tested were seropositive for Neospora caninum; and that state in which the cattle lived and age impacted (P < 0.05) infection rate. Breed composition, number of farm dogs on the ranch, and use of total mixed rations were not associated (P > 0.1) with seropositive …


Effect Of The Prospect Of Transport On Captive Tiger Behavior And Fecal Cortisol In Naïve And Experienced Tigers, Callan Lichtenwalter Jan 2020

Effect Of The Prospect Of Transport On Captive Tiger Behavior And Fecal Cortisol In Naïve And Experienced Tigers, Callan Lichtenwalter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With close to 5,000 captive tigers in the United States, it is vital to ensure that these tigers are receiving adequate welfare whether they are in an accredited facility, or privately owned. The goal of this study was to assess whether captive tigers at a rescue facility with experience being transported outside of the facility would respond differently to the presentation of their transport vehicle than their naïve counterparts who had only been transported within the facility. The behavior of 5 naïve and 7 experienced tigers (n = 12) located at Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs, Arkansas was …