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University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

2023

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Articles 1 - 19 of 19

Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Exogenous Mitochondrial Transfer And Il-6: Modulating Adipocyte Metabolism In Obesity-Associated Dysregulation, Soumi Mazumdar Dec 2023

Exogenous Mitochondrial Transfer And Il-6: Modulating Adipocyte Metabolism In Obesity-Associated Dysregulation, Soumi Mazumdar

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Obesity, a global health epidemic, poses significant challenges to public well-being due to its complex interplay of metabolic dysregulation, inflammation, and associated comorbidities. Mitochondria, central to ATP production, lipid metabolism, and thermogenesis, play a crucial role in modulating white adipose tissue metabolism. This thesis explores an innovative strategy for addressing mitochondrial dysfunction in obesity which is a critical aspect of this multifactorial problem. The research findings presented herein uncover the impact of introducing exogenous mitochondria into NIH3T3-L1 adipocytes on various aspects of adipocyte function. The key discoveries of this study include a remarkable upregulation of energy expenditure genes, notably Ucp1, …

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The Exploration Of Perceptions Of Patient-Clinician Communication In Black Mothers Diagnosed With An Acute Post-Partum Hypertensive Crisis, Melanie P. Fant Dec 2023

The Exploration Of Perceptions Of Patient-Clinician Communication In Black Mothers Diagnosed With An Acute Post-Partum Hypertensive Crisis, Melanie P. Fant

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

For Black American mothers, postpartum stressors are magnified as about half of this population are single mothers, and many suffer from inadequate social and healthcare needs. Expected postpartum stressors, coupled with social stressors that Black American mothers face, can mask or influence patient reporting of early postpartum hypertensive crisis symptoms. Patients diagnosed with preeclampsia risk developing even more severe complications, such as cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States. Black American women face the challenge of inadequate communication with their healthcare providers, medical mistrust, and perceived discrimination when accessing health care. Pregnant women, …

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Investigating Potential Quantitative Trait Loci For Susceptibility To Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis In The Bxd Family Of Mice, Margaret Caroline Danehy Dec 2023

Investigating Potential Quantitative Trait Loci For Susceptibility To Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis In The Bxd Family Of Mice, Margaret Caroline Danehy

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune inflammatory condition that causes disability, axonal damage in the central nervous system, and eventual paralysis. One of the main risk factors for developing MS is genetics, with recent studies identifying multiple risk alleles associated the major histocompatibility complex. By utilizing the BXD family of mice, we investigated genetic factors that affect a BXD strain’s susceptibility to EAE, an inducible disease model for MS. We induced EAE in several BXD mice strains via an emulsion of complete Freund’s adjuvant and MOG35-55, and then measured disease severity in each strain. From there, we measured incidence rate of …

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Shifting Emergency Department Utilization Patterns Among Vulnerable Populations During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Leigh A. Mccormack Dec 2023

Shifting Emergency Department Utilization Patterns Among Vulnerable Populations During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Leigh A. Mccormack

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Background: COVID-19 is a contagious respiratory illness caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of March 10, 2023, the virus infected nearly 104 million Americans. Many individuals were wary of seeking medical attention for issues unrelated to COVID-19 for fear of infection inside healthcare facilities. This hesitation caused a drop in emergency department (ED) visits for non-COVID-19 conditions. It is essential to ensure that individuals with critical healthcare needs receive the care they require and to mitigate the potential long-term consequences of delayed or deferred care. Objectives: The primary aim of this study is to examine …

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Impact Of Medicaid Expansion On Adherence To Antidiabetic Medications Among Low-Income Adults, Okoia Stoddard Dec 2023

Impact Of Medicaid Expansion On Adherence To Antidiabetic Medications Among Low-Income Adults, Okoia Stoddard

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Purpose. Low-income adults are disproportionately afflicted with diabetes and are more likely to suffer from advanced forms of diabetes related sequelae. Uninterrupted therapy on antidiabetic medications can postpone or prevent the damaging and costly complications associated with the progression of diabetes; however, many low-income individuals face significant barriers adhering to drug regimens. Medicaid, the primary source of health insurance among low-income people, mitigates access and cost barriers by providing access to health services and prescription drugs at a reduced cost. In 2014, Medicaid expansion, a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), would have had the potential …

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Matrix Gene Splicing And Emergence Of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, Christopher Patton Dec 2023

Matrix Gene Splicing And Emergence Of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, Christopher Patton

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is a continual threat to the commercial poultry industry. In the past 40 years there have been five outbreaks of HPAI in North America. Rapid responses to these outbreaks have been crucial in preventing HPAI from becoming endemic in North America. The three worst outbreaks of HPAI in North America occurred in 1983-84, 2014-15, and 2021-23. The most recent outbreak was the worst North American HPAI outbreak in recorded history and will likely result in endemicity. Here we described the three worst recorded HPAI outbreaks in North America. The first of these outbreaks occurred in …

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Evaluation Of Efferent Unmasking Using Cortical Auditory-Evoked Potentials, Donguk Lee Dec 2023

Evaluation Of Efferent Unmasking Using Cortical Auditory-Evoked Potentials, Donguk Lee

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Purpose. All human beings, regardless of whether they have hearing impairments or not, face difficulties in detecting signals in the presence of background noise. To cope with such situations, people can enhance their performance by either increasing the signal levels or reducing the noise levels, which in turn increases the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). SNRs play a crucial role in determining one's speech perception abilities. For instance, if the noise levels are high, individuals may raise their voices or decrease their distance from the source to amplify the signal levels, thereby increasing the SNR. However, in real-life situations, individuals may not …

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Cortical Tracking Of Syntax In Post-Stroke Aphasia: An Eeg Investigation Of Disrupted Sentence Comprehension, Matthew Blake Rafferty Dec 2023

Cortical Tracking Of Syntax In Post-Stroke Aphasia: An Eeg Investigation Of Disrupted Sentence Comprehension, Matthew Blake Rafferty

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Purpose. People with aphasia following stroke commonly exhibit marked difficulties in sentence comprehension, referred to as receptive agrammatism. However, theories of receptive agrammatism differ in their assumptions regarding the underlying mechanisms of impairment. Representation-based theories ascribe receptive agrammatism to a loss of grammatical knowledge. Processing-based theories suggest that individuals with receptive agrammatism have intact grammatical knowledge but may possess insufficient neurocognitive resources to apply this knowledge within cognitively demanding contexts. In this study, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate whether these perspectives may be disambiguated by the neural activity profiles of people with aphasia during comprehension. For this purpose, we …

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The Effects Of Synovial Fluid And Inflammatory Cells On Orthopaedic Implant Alloys, Lisa Phan Jun 2023

The Effects Of Synovial Fluid And Inflammatory Cells On Orthopaedic Implant Alloys, Lisa Phan

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Introduction. Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a common surgical procedure used to treat end-stage osteoarthritis. The implants used in TKA typically consist of a Cobalt Chromium Molybdenum (CoCrMo) femoral component and a Titanium Aluminum Vanadium (TiAlV) alloy baseplate. These metal alloys are chosen for their mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, high affinity for bone, and biocompatibility. However, they can be susceptible to mechanical and electrochemical wear, leading to the release of metal ions. Osteoarthritis and inflammation can alter the composition of Synovial Fluid (SF), potentially causing implant corrosion and the release of metal ions into the surrounding tissue. These metal ions …

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Studies On The Leukocyte-Associated Ig-Like Inhibitory Receptor-1 Signaling Pathway In T Lymphocytes, Chidi Zacheaus Jun 2023

Studies On The Leukocyte-Associated Ig-Like Inhibitory Receptor-1 Signaling Pathway In T Lymphocytes, Chidi Zacheaus

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Inflammation is a natural process in which the immune system concertedly responds to pathogens and abnormal cell growth to protect the host. For an efficient/effective immune response that circumvents tissue atrophy, a delicate balance between stimulatory and inhibitory mechanisms is essential for the proper functioning of the immune system. Immuno-receptor Tyrosine-based Inhibitory Motif (ITIM)-bearing receptors in immune cells, including T lymphocytes, play a major role in preventing autoimmune responses. Leukocyte-associated Ig-like Inhibitory Receptor 1 (LAIR-1) is one of ITIM-bearing receptors. The mechanism by which LAIR-1 attenuates T-cell response has yet to be completely understood. In this study, I investigated a …

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Tcf4 Is A Key Mediator Of Cell Identity And Oncogenesis In Neuroblastoma, Nour Aljouda May 2023

Tcf4 Is A Key Mediator Of Cell Identity And Oncogenesis In Neuroblastoma, Nour Aljouda

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Neuroblastomas (NB) are embryonal childhood tumors that derive from the multipotent neural crest cells (NCCs) of the peripheral nervous system. NB accounts for more than 15% of all childhood cancer-related deaths. Despite the most intensive multimodal therapy, more than 50% of patients with high-risk NB relapse with often fatal, resistant disease. Novel therapies are desperately needed to improve cure rates. Previous studies proposed that the deregulation of normal neural crest developmental programs contributes to NB oncogenesis by retaining the highly migratory and proliferative traits of NCCs. Thus, activation or repression of neural crest developmental pathways have been implicated in NB …

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Pkpd-Model Based Preclinical Characterization Of The Activity Of Spectinamide 1599 Against Mycobacterial Subpopulations. And The Identification Of Potential Partners For Combination Therapy, Zaid Hanif Temrikar May 2023

Pkpd-Model Based Preclinical Characterization Of The Activity Of Spectinamide 1599 Against Mycobacterial Subpopulations. And The Identification Of Potential Partners For Combination Therapy, Zaid Hanif Temrikar

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Tuberculosis is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent prior to COVID19. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is the causative agent of TB. The interaction between Mtb and the immune system leads to development of diverse environmental niches and physiology within the lung of the TB patients. Mtb is thought to adapt and thrive in such an environment by transforming to different phenotypic variants. Such variants are difficult to kill and are thought to prolong TB pharmacotherapy. Spectinamide 1599 is a synthetic modification of spectinomycin that has demonstrated excellent …

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Impacts Of Habitat, Resource Addition, And Predator Exclusion On Rodent Community Structure And Hantaviruses In The Neotropics, Briana Spruill-Harrell Apr 2023

Impacts Of Habitat, Resource Addition, And Predator Exclusion On Rodent Community Structure And Hantaviruses In The Neotropics, Briana Spruill-Harrell

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Understanding how climate and human land use change impacts trophic interactions is essential in the face of ongoing biodiversity loss and the continued emergence of RNA viruses and zoonosis. Human land use changes such as agricultural expansion, deforestation, and habitat degradation all have been linked to zoonotic disease emergence. Despite these commonalities, our mechanistic understanding of what drives them is lacking. Moreover, genomic surveillance in wildlife populations is critical for risk assessment and mitigation. Herein, using data collected from field studies within the Reserva Natural del Bosque Mbaracayú (RNBM), a protected area of the Interior Atlantic Forest (IAF), I examined …

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Multimorbidity In Diverse Populations: Stratified Analysis Of Race/Ethnicity, Age, Obesity, And Healthcare Costs, Manal Alshakhs Apr 2023

Multimorbidity In Diverse Populations: Stratified Analysis Of Race/Ethnicity, Age, Obesity, And Healthcare Costs, Manal Alshakhs

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

This research aims to fill an essential gap in understanding how Body Mass Index (BMI) cutoffs relate to multimorbidity across races in the United States (US). Given the significant and growing rates of obesity and multimorbidity, as well as the known differences in healthy fat distribution among different races, this is an important area of research. BMI is a widely used but imperfect measure of obesity, as it does not account for differences in body composition. However, it is still used as a diagnostic tool. It is vital to ensure that the cutoffs used to define obesity are appropriate for …

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Crna Decision-Making Within The Anesthesia Care Team, Cindi L. Dabney Apr 2023

Crna Decision-Making Within The Anesthesia Care Team, Cindi L. Dabney

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

This research focused on Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesiologists’ (CRNAs’) perspectives on the value placed on their decision-making skills within the Anesthesia Care Team (ACT). The emphasis of the study was to examine CRNA’s perspectives on the strengths, challenges, conflict resolutions, and any other information they were willing to divulge when working with physician anesthesiologists in the ACT model. An electronic survey questionnaire was sent to practicing CRNAs, primarily in the southeast region of the United States, with 171 informants completing the questionnaire. Data analysis included demographic information of the convenience sample that included age, gender, initial educational preparation as a …

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A Design, Development, And Evaluation Of Bio-Patch For Myocardial Tissue Repair, Yaya Zhang Apr 2023

A Design, Development, And Evaluation Of Bio-Patch For Myocardial Tissue Repair, Yaya Zhang

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Introduction. Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is a major concern of human health issue. The structural repair and functional recovery of injured hearts is a major challenge in the clinical setting. Preclinical studies over last 10 years have demonstrated the potential of using stem cells to treat IHD, but the efficacy of this therapy is jeopardized by uncontrollable migration and low survival of the injected stem cells. An approach based on tissue engineering enabling target-specific stem cell delivery such as cardiac patches has emerged as an alternative solution for stem cell therapy for IHD. It employs scaffold materials to engulf various …

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Investigation Of Clinically Relevant Fluconazole Resistance Mechanisms In The Fungal Pathogen Candida Parapsilosis, Laura Anne Doorley Apr 2023

Investigation Of Clinically Relevant Fluconazole Resistance Mechanisms In The Fungal Pathogen Candida Parapsilosis, Laura Anne Doorley

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Invasive candidiasis is a severe fungal infection associated with significant morbidity and mortality, particularly among the critically ill and immunocompromised. Candida parapsilosis is the most common non-albicans species causing invasive Candida infections in pediatric and neonatal populations worldwide and is particularly common in the countries of South America, Western Asia, Mediterranean Europe, and Southern Africa. For many of these countries, fluconazole and other triazoles are the first line antifungal agents used for effective treatment of invasive Candida infection. Until recently, rates of fluconazole resistance among C. parapsilosis isolates were relatively low, therefore the determination of clinically relevant resistance mechanisms in …

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Molecular And Cellular Investigations Of Prader-Willi Syndrome, Anna K. Victor Apr 2023

Molecular And Cellular Investigations Of Prader-Willi Syndrome, Anna K. Victor

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex multigenic neurodevelopmental disorder resulting in hypotonia, developmental delay, hypogonadism, sleep dysfunction and childhood onset obesity affecting 1 in 10,000 to 30,000 individuals. PWS is an imprinting disorder that is caused by a loss of expression of maternally imprinted genes in the 15q11.2-q13 region including NDN, MAGEL2, SNRPN/SNURF, and a cluster of snoRNAs. The majority of cases are caused by inheriting a paternal allele deletion of this region (65-75%) and a smaller number are caused by chromosome 15 maternal uniparental disomy (UPD) (20-30%) or imprinting center defects (1-3%). Here, we used dental pulp stem cells …

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Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (Pbpk) Modeling For The Preclinical Development Of Spectinamide Antibiotics, Keyur R. Parmar Jan 2023

Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (Pbpk) Modeling For The Preclinical Development Of Spectinamide Antibiotics, Keyur R. Parmar

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Despite being an ancient disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and after decades of research, tuberculosis (TB) still affects millions of people every year worldwide. In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 10 million people developed tuberculosis and 1.5 million died of the disease. With the increase in the multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) cases, the treatment for TB with the standard first and second-line therapy is becoming increasingly difficult. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find new anti-TB drugs as combination partners of existing and experimental classes of antimicrobial agents to shorten and simplify the …

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