Molecular Biology Commons^™

The Impact Of Lncrna Dysregulation On Clinicopathology And Survival Of Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Tian Tian, Meng Wang, Shuai Lin, Zhiming Dan, Kang Liu, Wenge Zhu, +Several Additional Authors

Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

Dysregulation of multiple long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) was reported to play major roles in breast cancer (BC). Here we aimed to collect most of the relevant literature to assess the prognostic value of lncRNAs in BC. To this end, we systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang to identify published articles on the associations of lncRNAs with clinicopathology and/or survival of BC. Via this searching, we identified 70 articles involving 9,307 BC patients and regarding 48 lncRNAs. The expression of 41 lncRNAs was related to one or more clinicopathological parameters of ...

Cell And Molecular Biology 3e – An Interactive Electronic Textbook, Gerald Bergtrom

Cell and Molecular Biology 3e i-Text

Like its predecessor, the interactive electronic text (iText) Cell and Molecular Biology 3e: What We Know & How We Found Out focuses on experimental support for what we know about cell and molecular biology. It was written to serve as the introductory biology course for biology majors with high school chemistry and biology prerequisites as well as for “gateway” cell and molecular biology courses for students with a college-level general biology and general chemistry course background. This is a free Open Education Resource (OER), covered by a Creative Commons CCBY license (for more details, check out the license page of the ...

Role Of The Mapk/Cjun Nh2-Terminal Kinase Signaling Pathway In Starvation-Induced Autophagy, Seda Barutcu, Nomeda Girnius, Santiago Vernia, Roger J. Davis

Davis Lab Publications

Autophagy is required for cellular homeostasis and can determine cell viability in response to stress. It is established that MTOR is a master regulator of starvation-induced macroautophagy/autophagy, but recent studies have also implicated an essential role for the MAPK8/cJun NH2-terminal kinase 1 signal transduction pathway. We found that MAPK8/JNK1 and MAPK9/JNK2 were not required for autophagy caused by starvation or MTOR inhibition in murine fibroblasts and epithelial cells. These data demonstrate that MAPK8/9 has no required role in starvation-induced autophagy. We conclude that the role of MAPK8/9 in autophagy may be context-dependent and more ...

A Rationally Engineered Capsid Variant Of Aav9 For Systemic Cns-Directed And Peripheral Tissue-Detargeted Gene Delivery In Neonates, Dan Wang, Shaoyong Li, Dominic J. Gessler, Jun Xie, Li Zhong, Jia Li, Karen Tran, Kim Van Vliet, Lingzhi Ren, Qin Su, Ran He, Jason E. Goetzmann, Terence R. Flotte, Mavis Agbandje-Mckenna, Guangping Gao

Open Access Articles

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has provided the gene therapy field with the most powerful in vivo gene delivery vector to realize safe, efficacious, and sustainable therapeutic gene expression. Because many clinically relevant properties of AAV-based vectors are governed by the capsid, much research effort has been devoted to the development of AAV capsids for desired features. Here, we combine AAV capsid discovery from nature and rational engineering to report an AAV9 capsid variant, designated as AAV9.HR, which retains AAV9's capability to traverse the blood-brain barrier and transduce neurons. This variant shows reduced transduction in peripheral tissues when delivered through ...

Mapping Molecular Datasets Back To The Brain Regions They Are Extracted From: Remembering The Native Countries Of Hypothalamic Expatriates And Refugees, Arshad M. Khan, Alice H. Grant, Anais Martinez, Gully Apc Burns, Brendan S. Thatcher, Vishwanath T. Anekonda, Benjamin W. Thompson, Zachary S. Roberts, Daniel H. Moralejo, James E. Blevins

Arshad M. Khan, Ph.D.

Mathematical Modeling Of Nutrient Signaling And Growth In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Amogh P. Jalihal, Pavel Kraikivski, T.M. Murali, John J. Tyson

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Mechanisms Of Age-Related Prostate Growth And Tumorigenesis, Deon O'Bryant

Electronic Theses & Dissertations Collection for Atlanta University & Clark Atlanta University

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy among men, but few genetic factors that drive prostate cancer initiation have been identified. The WD repeat domain 77 (Wdr77) protein is essential for cellular proliferation when it localizes in the cytoplasm of epithelial cells at the early stage of prostate development. In the adult prostate, it is transported into the nucleus and functions as a co-regulator of the androgen receptor to promote cellular differentiation and prostate function. This developmental process is reversed during prostate tumorigenesis i.e., Wdr77 is translocated from the nucleus into the cytoplasm to drive proliferation of prostate ...

Regulation Of The Pi3-Kinase/Pten Signaling Pathway By Tgf-Β In Prostate Cancer Cells, Mawiyah Kimbrough-Allah

Electronic Theses & Dissertations Collection for Atlanta University & Clark Atlanta University

Transforming growth factor -β (TGF-β) plays an important role in the progression of prostate cancer. It acts as a tumor suppressor in normal epithelial cells but as a tumor promoter in advanced prostate cancer cells. The PI3-kinase pathway has been shown to play integral roles in many cellular processes including cell proliferation, survival, and cell migration in many cell types. PI3-kinase pathway mediates TGF-β effects on prostate cancer cell migration and invasion. Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), a tumor suppressor gene, inhibits PI3-kinase pathway and is frequently mutated in prostate cancers. In this present study, we investigated possible roles of ...

Palmitoylation Of The Sodium Hydrogen Exchanger Isoform 1 (Nhe1): A Novel Post-Translational Protein Modification And Its Regulation Of Nhe1, Emily Pitsch

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The sodium-hydrogen exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1) is a ubiquitously expressed transmembrane transporter protein involved in regulating intracellular pH and interacts with a variety of proteins involved in cell signaling, proliferation, and cell motility. The protein has an extended cytosolic tail known as the regulatory region. This project investigates the role of palmitoylation, a reversible fatty acid modification on cysteine amino acids, in the function and behavior of NHE1.

Development Of Lc-Ms For The Identification And Characterization Of Non-Adjacent Dna Photoproduct Formation In G-Quadruplex Forming Sequences, Claudia Posadas

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ultraviolet light is well known to induce cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD) and pyrimidine (6–4) pyrimidone photoproducts in duplex DNA, which interfere with DNA replication and transcription. Recently, a new class of DNA photoproducts known as anti cyclobutanepyrimidine dimers have been discovered, which form in G-quadruplex forming sequences in solution. G-quadruplex structures have been proposed to form in human DNA telomeres and certain promoters in vivo but evidence for their existence has been lacking. Since anti-cyclobutante pyrimidine dimers have been shown to form in G-quadruplex forming sequences, their formation in irradiated human cells could be used to confirm the ...

Investigation Into The Amino Acid Characteristic Of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins, Samantha Patterson

Honors Theses AY 17/18

Caulobacter crescentus, which belongs to the class of Alphaproteobacteria, has a highly organized cytoplasm that includes complex macromolecular structures at the cell poles. These polar complexes are assembled through the activity of a scaffolding protein, known as the Polar Organizing Protein Z (PopZ). PopZ interacts with other proteins via an N-terminal domain that is mostly intrinsically disordered, and contains, an abundance of proline, glutamte, and aspartate (P,E, and D) residues. Surprisingly, scrambling the order of amino acids in the PED region does not affect PopZ function, suggesting that binding affinity and specificity are not dependent on interactions with individual ...

Melatonin-Micronutrients Osteopenia Treatment Study (Mots): A Translational Study Assessing The Effects Of Melatonin, Strontium Citrate, Vitamin D3 And Vitamin K2 On Bone Density, Bone Turnover Markers And Health-Related Quality Of Life In Postmenopausal Osteopenic Women Following A One-Year Double-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial And On Osteoblast-Osteoclast Co-Cultures, Sifat Maria

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess if a novel combination of melatonin and three other natural bone-aiding micronutrients: strontium citrate, vitamins D₃ and K₂ (MSDK) could improve bone health by modulating the activity of osteoblasts and osteoclasts in favor of balanced bone remodeling and by improving the overall health-related quality of life in postmenopausal osteopenic women.

Methods: The Melatonin-micronutrients Osteopenia Treatment Study (MOTS) is a translational research study that used both clinical and in vitro approaches to assess the efficacy of MSDK on bone health in women and to identify potential mechanisms for its effects ...

All-In-One Adeno-Associated Virus Delivery And Genome Editing By Neisseria Meningitidis Cas9 In Vivo, Raed Ibraheim, Chun-Qing Song, Aamir Mir, Nadia Amrani, Wen Xue, Erik J. Sontheimer

University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications

Clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated proteins (Cas) have recently opened a new avenue for gene therapy. Cas9 nuclease guided by a single-guide RNA (sgRNA) has been extensively used for genome editing. Currently, three Cas9 orthologs have been adapted forin vivo genome engineering applications: SpyCas9, SauCas9 and CjeCas9. However, additional in vivo editing platforms are needed, in part to enable a greater range of sequences to be accessed via viral vectors, especially those in which Cas9 and sgRNA are combined into a single vector genome. Here, we present an additional in vivo editing platform using Neisseria ...

Nmecas9 Is An Intrinsically High-Fidelity Genome Editing Platform, Nadia Amrani, Xin D. Gao, Pengpeng Liu, Alireza Edraki, Aamir Mir, Raed Ibraheim, Ankit Gupta, Kanae E. Sasaki, Tong Wu, Thomas G. Fazzio, Lihua Julie Zhu, Scot A. Wolfe, Erik J. Sontheimer

University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications

Background: The development of CRISPR genome editing has transformed biomedical research. Most applications reported thus far rely upon the Cas9 protein from Streptococcus pyogenes SF370 (SpyCas9). With many RNA guides, wild-type SpyCas9 can induce significant levels of unintended mutations at near-cognate sites, necessitating substantial efforts toward the development of strategies to minimize off-target activity. Although the genome-editing potential of thousands of other Cas9 orthologs remains largely untapped, it is not known how many will require similarly extensive engineering to achieve single-site accuracy within large (e.g. mammalian) genomes. In addition to its off-targeting propensity, SpyCas9 is encoded by a relatively ...

Modeling And Analyzing An Optogenetic System For Photoactivatable Protein Dissociation, Anvin Thomas, James Schaff

Honors Scholar Theses

Computational modeling of cell-cell interactions can grant clues and can answer questions about an experiment, especially for observations about binding interactions and kinetics. This approach was used to investigate an interaction between a light-oxygen-voltage (LOV) domain and an engineered protein called Zdark (Zdk). The LOV domain is membrane-bound while Zdk is cytosolic. The LOV domain and Zdk bind strongly in dark (K_d 26.2 nM), and weakly upon exposure to blue light (K_d > 4 μM). Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) images are acquired of Zdk, the fluorescent species bound to a mCherry tag, and the loss of fluorescence ...

Rapid And Sensitive Detection Of Escherichia Coli O157:H7 Using A Qcm Sensor Based On Aptamers Selected By Whole-Bacterium Selex And A Multivalent Aptamer System, Xiaofan Yu

Theses and Dissertations

Escherichia coli O157:H7 is one of the top five pathogens contributing to foodborne diseases, causing an estimated 2,138 cases of hospitalization in the US each year. The extremely low infectious dose demands for more rapid and sensitive methods to detect E. coli O157:H7. The objective of this study is to select aptamers specifically binding to E. coli O157:H7 using whole-bacterium SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) and to create a multivalent aptamer system by rolling circle amplification (RCA) with the selected aptamer sequence for sensitive detection of E. coli O157:H7 using a quartz ...

Involvement Of The Ino80 Complex In Chromosome Segregation, Jesus Moreno

Theses and Dissertations

Chromatin remodeling complexes are multi-protein complexes that regulate the dynamics of the nucleosomes in the genome. The INO80 chromatin remodeling complex participates in varied biological processes such as: transcription, DNA repair, DNA replication and chromosome integrity. It catalyzes the eviction of the H2A.Z variant histone as well as whole nucleosome eviction. This complex is comprised of 15 subunits and the contribution of each to chromosome segregations remains unknown. To evaluate the contribution of each subunit to chromosome segregation, we tested deletion mutants of the non-essential subunits for DNA content and benomyl sensitivity. Also, we assessed members of the SWR1 ...

Optimizing Genetic Manipulation Of Methanogens Through Faster Cloning Techniques, Merrisa Jennings

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Methanogenesis is the biological production of methane. Only anaerobic archaea known as methanogens are capable of such a metabolic feat. They have strict living conditions and substrate sources which determine their rate of metabolism. This is of particular importance from a greenhouse gas reduction perspective or biogas capturing perspective. One of the best ways to optimize methanogen methane production is via genetic manipulation. The current procedures are timely though, therefore a faster cloning processes should be developed. The objective of this study was to optimize a premade genetic transformation kit known as the Gibson Kit. The Gibson Kit was supposed ...

Functional Studies Of The E. Coli Proc And A Putative Ortholog Mrub_1345, Mourin Azar, Dr. Lori Scott

Meiothermus ruber Genome Analysis Project

This project is part of the Meiothermus ruber genome analysis project, which uses the bioinformatics tools associated with the Guiding Education through Novel Investigation –Annotation Collaboration Toolkit (GENI-ACT) to predict gene function. We investigated the biological function of Escherichia coli and Meiothermus ruber proC genes using the complementation assay. In this research project, mutants of varying severity to the functional state of the protein were developed. The results showed that two or more amino acid deletions reduced or eliminated ProC function. Amino acid substitutions, on the other hand, were not severe enough to impact ProC function. Double and triple mutants ...

Microbiome Of Commercial Broilers Through Evisceration And Immersion Chilling, John A. Handley

Theses and Dissertations

The United States poultry industry generated 38.6 billion pounds (17,500 metric ton) of meat in 2014 which averaged to 121 pounds (55 kg) per individual of the U.S that same year. Of that meat generated by the poultry industry, an estimated 1 million cases of Salmonellosis will occur. Out of the 1 million cases approximately 40, 000 to 50,000 will be confirmed cases by the CDC. Recently, the USDA has requested changes in the inspection process and are currently allowing processors more freedom to utilize innovation to drive the increase in safer and more desirable foods ...