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The Phytoremediation Of Escherichia Coli In Contaminated Water By Lemna Minor, Salvinia Minima, And Azolla Caroliniana, Madison Han

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

The Effectiveness Of Lithium Chloride In Eliciting A Taste Aversion Response In Blaptica Dubia, Ava Phelps

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Ec Expression Of Activated K-Ras Leads To Capillary Deficiency Due To Excessive Lumen Formation, Reduced Pericyte Recruitment, And An Increased Susceptibility To Mmp-1-Dependent Vascular Regression, Zheying Sun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Activated k-Ras mutations play a role in a variety of pathological conditions, such as arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). To study the effect of activated k-Ras mutation on lumen formation, we engineered human ECs to simultaneously express the activated k-Ras (G12V) mutation and compared their ability to form lumens with control ECs. We demonstrated that ECs with k-RasV12 lead to marked stimulation of EC lumen formation due to dramatic increases in intracellular vacuole formation and fusion, signaling changes including accelerated Src kinase activation, and MT1-MMP-dependent lumen expansion, all of which drive the process of lumen formation. The markedly accentuated lumen formation is …

Interactions Between Juvenile Estuary-Dependent Fishes And Microalgal Dynamics, Ian C. Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ontogenetic movement of juvenile estuary-dependent fishes upstream in estuarine settings is a phenomenon observed around the world. These movements usually coincide with a shift in diet from smaller prey, such as calanoid copepods, to larger prey, such as mysids. However, the mechanism that drives this pattern has yet to be conclusively described. Prior to the current study, zooplankton/hyperbenthos (“zooplankton”), primary production, and water quality data were collected from the Caloosahatchee River estuary in two concurrent and coordinated studies over a two-year period. One of the products of these sampling efforts was a classification of primary-producer types at the sediment-water …

Viruses In Astrobiology, Ignacio De La Higuera, Ester Lázaro

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, and yet, they have not received enough consideration in astrobiology. Viruses are also extraordinarily diverse, which is evident in the types of relationships they establish with their host, their strategies to store and replicate their genetic information and the enormous diversity of genes they contain. A viral population, especially if it corresponds to a virus with an RNA genome, can contain an array of sequence variants that greatly exceeds what is present in most cell populations. The fact that viruses always need cellular resources to multiply means that they establish very …

Loss Of Non-Motor Kinesin Kif26a Causes Congenital Brain Malformations Via Dysregulated Neuronal Migration And Axonal Growth As Well As Apoptosis, Xuyu Qian, Ellen M Degennaro, Maya Talukdar, Shyam K Akula, Abbe Lai, Diane D Shao, Dilenny Gonzalez, Jack H Marciano, Richard S Smith, Norma K Hylton, Edward Yang, J Fernando Bazan, Lee Barrett, Rebecca C Yeh, R Sean Hill, Samantha G Beck, Aoi Otani, Jolly Angad, Tadahiro Mitani, Jennifer E Posey, Davut Pehlivan, Daniel Calame, Hatip Aydin, Osman Yesilbas, Kendall C Parks, Emanuela Argilli, Eleina England, Kiho Im, Ajay Taranath, Hamish S Scott, Christopher P Barnett, Peer Arts, Elliott H Sherr, James R Lupski, Christopher A Walsh

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Kinesins are canonical molecular motors but can also function as modulators of intracellular signaling. KIF26A, an unconventional kinesin that lacks motor activity, inhibits growth-factor-receptor-bound protein 2 (GRB2)- and focal adhesion kinase (FAK)-dependent signal transduction, but its functions in the brain have not been characterized. We report a patient cohort with biallelic loss-of-function variants in KIF26A, exhibiting a spectrum of congenital brain malformations. In the developing brain, KIF26A is preferentially expressed during early- and mid-gestation in excitatory neurons. Combining mice and human iPSC-derived organoid models, we discovered that loss of KIF26A causes excitatory neuron-specific defects in radial migration, localization, dendritic and …

Ocean Acidification Does Not Overlook Sex: Review Of Understudied Effects And Implications Of Low Ph On Marine Invertebrate Sexual Reproduction, Jacqueline L. Padilla-Gamiño, Lindsay Alma, Laura H. Spencer, Yaamini R. Venkataraman, Leah Wessler

Biology

Sexual reproduction is a fundamental process essential for species persistence, evolution, and diversity. However, unprecedented oceanographic shifts due to climate change can impact physiological processes, with important implications for sexual reproduction. Identifying bottlenecks and vulnerable stages in reproductive cycles will enable better prediction of the organism, population, community, and global-level consequences of ocean change. This article reviews how ocean acidification impacts sexual reproductive processes in marine invertebrates and highlights current research gaps. We focus on five economically and ecologically important taxonomic groups: cnidarians, crustaceans, echinoderms, molluscs and ascidians. We discuss the spatial and temporal variability of experimental designs, identify trends …

Inhibiting Glutamine Utilization Creates A Synthetic Lethality For Suppression Of Atp Citrate Lyase In Kras-Driven Cancer Cells, Ahmet Hatipoglu, Deepak Menon, Talia Levy, Maria A. Frias, David A. Foster

Publications and Research

Metabolic reprogramming is now considered a hallmark of cancer cells. KRas-driven cancer cells use glutaminolysis to generate the tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediate α -ketoglutarate via a transamination reaction between glutamate and oxaloacetate. We reported previously that exogenously supplied unsaturated fatty acids could be used to synthesize phosphatidic acid–a lipid second messenger that activates both mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) complex 1 (mTORC1) and mTOR complex 2 (mTORC2). A key target of mTORC2 is Akt–a kinase that promotes survival and regulates cell metabolism. We report here that mono- unsaturated oleic acid stimulates the phosphoryla tion of ATP citrate lyase (ACLY) at …

Genetic Inhibition Of Nuclear Factor Of Activated T-Cell C2 Prevents Atrial Fibrillation In Crem Transgenic Mice, Li Ni, Satadru K Lahiri, Jiali Nie, Xiaolu Pan, Issam Abu-Taha, Julia O Reynolds, Hannah M Campbell, Haihao Wang, Markus Kamler, Wilhelm Schmitz, Frank Ulrich Müller, Na Li, Xiang Wei, Dao Wen Wang, Dobromir Dobrev, Xander H T Wehrens

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

AIMS: Abnormal intracellular calcium (Ca2+) handling contributes to the progressive nature of atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia. Evidence in mouse models suggests that activation of the nuclear factor of activated T-cell (NFAT) signalling pathway contributes to atrial remodelling. Our aim was to determine the role of NFATc2 in AF in humans and mouse models.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Expression levels of NFATc1-c4 isoforms were assessed by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction in right atrial appendages from patients with chronic AF (cAF). NFATc1 and NFATc2 mRNA levels were elevated in cAF patients compared with those in normal sinus …

Unraveling The Pathways Involved In Intestinal Repair After Ionizing Radiation Damage, Blaine Pattavina

Natural Sciences and Mathematics | Biological Sciences Master's Theses

Exposure to genotoxic environmental agents has detrimental effects on health span and aging. Macromolecular damage caused by these factors is also known to lead to diseases like cancer. Radiation therapy is the treatment of choice for malignant tumors and several non-malignant diseases. Despite its effectiveness, it often leads to unintended complications. Radio-sensitivity of healthy ‘bystander’ cells is an important factor in mediating these complications, which often result in several long-term and debilitating side effects. This incurs huge costs in patient care to maintain the well-being of survivors. Current efforts to understand the underlying molecular patho-physiology of radiation damage involve the …

Enriched Dietary Saturated Fatty Acids Induce Trained Immunity Via Ceramide Production That Enhances Severity Of Endotoxemia And Clearance Of Infection, Amy L. Seufert, James W. Hickman, Ste K. Traxler, Rachael M. Peterson, Trent A. Waugh, Sydney L. Lashley, Natalia Shulzhenko, Ruth J. Napier, Brooke A. Napier

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Trained immunity is an innate immune memory response that is induced by a primary inflammatory stimulus that sensitizes monocytes and macrophages to a secondary pathogenic challenge, reprogramming the host response to infection and inflammatory disease. Dietary fatty acids can act as inflammatory stimuli, but it is unknown if they can act as the primary stimuli to induce trained immunity. Here we find mice fed a diet enriched exclusively in saturated fatty acids (ketogenic diet; KD) confer a hyper-inflammatory response to systemic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and increased mortality, independent of diet-induced microbiome and hyperglycemia. We find KD alters the composition of the …

Control Of Ribosomal Rna Synthesis By Hematopoietic Transcription Factors, Charles Antony, Subin S George, Justin Blum, Patrick Somers, Chelsea L Thorsheim, Dexter J Wu-Corts, Yuxi Ai, Long Gao, Kaosheng Lv, Michel G Tremblay, Tom Moss, Kai Tan, Jeremy E Wilusz, Austen R D Ganley, Maxim Pimkin, Vikram R Paralkar

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) are the most abundant cellular RNAs, and their synthesis from rDNA repeats by RNA polymerase I accounts for the bulk of all transcription. Despite substantial variation in rRNA transcription rates across cell types, little is known about cell-type-specific factors that bind rDNA and regulate rRNA transcription to meet tissue-specific needs. Using hematopoiesis as a model system, we mapped about 2,200 ChIP-seq datasets for 250 transcription factors (TFs) and chromatin proteins to human and mouse rDNA and identified robust binding of multiple TF families to canonical TF motifs on rDNA. Using a 47S-FISH-Flow assay developed for nascent rRNA …

A Latitudinal Signal In The Relationship Between Species Geographic Range Size And Climatic Niche Area, Tad Dallas, Andrew Kramer

Faculty Publications

Species with broader niches may have the opportunity to occupy larger geographic areas, assuming no limitations on dispersal and a relatively homogeneous environmental space. Here, we use data on a large set of mammal (n = 1225), bird (n = 1829) and tree (n = 341) species to examine the 1) relationship between geographic range size and climatic niche area, 2) influence of species traits on species departures from this relationship and 3) sensitivity of these relationships to how species range size and climatic niche area are estimated. We find positive geographic range size–climatic niche area relationships for all taxa, …

A Holistic Investigation Of Acidosis In Breast Cancer, Bryce Ordway

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the early 20th century, Nobel laureate Otto Warburg made the observation that cells of a carcinoma had considerably higher glycolytic metabolism and considerably lower oxidative metabolism compared to cells of a normal tissue. He postulated that within this observation was the key to deciphering the differences between malignant and normal tissue. It is now well established that tumors of the breast are unequivocally acidic, caused by an abnormal amount of aerobic glycolysis, colloquially known as the Warburg effect. Over the last decades, our group, led by Dr. Robert J. Gillies, has set out to characterize the causes and consequences …

Evaluation Of Invasive Avifauna Management Strategies In North America, Christopher L. Castillo

Great Plains Graduate Review

Human action has long been the cause of species introductions into new ecosystems (Lodge 1993). Now, these non-native species are a major global problem both ecologically and economically (Bled et al. 2011). Invasive species can alter habitats, decrease biodiversity, damage human settlements, and destroy agriculture (Townsend Peterson and Vieglais 2001; Kumschick and Nentwig 2010). The United States has been particularly affected by invasive introductions, a multitude of which have been avian species. Various management techniques have been implemented in order to control problem bird populations, however often times these methods are used with a ‘trial and error’ strategy. This review …

Early Intervention With 3bnc117 And Romidepsin At Antiretroviral Treatment Initiation In People With Hiv-1: A Phase 1b/2a, Randomized Trial, Jesper D. Gunst, Marie H. Pahus, Miriam Rosás-Umbert, I-Na Lu, Thomas Benfield, Henrik Nielsen, Isik S. Johansen, Rajesh Mohey, Lars Østergaard, Vibeke Klastrup, Maryam Khan, Mariane H. Schleimann, Rikke Olesen, Henrik Støvring, Paul W. Denton, Natalie N. Kinloch, Dennis C. Copertino, Adam R. Ward, Winiffer D. Conce Alberto, Silke D. Nielsen, Maria C. Puertas, Victor Ramos, Jacqueline D. Reeves, Christos J. Petropoulos, Javier Martinez-Picado, Zabrina L. Brumme, R. Brad Jones, Julie Fox, Martin Tolstrup, Michel C. Nussenzweig, Marina Caskey, Sarah Fidler, Ole S. Søgaard

Biology Faculty Publications

Attempts to reduce the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reservoir and induce antiretroviral therapy (ART)-free virologic control have largely been unsuccessful. In this phase 1b/2a, open-label, randomized controlled trial using a four-group factorial design, we investigated whether early intervention in newly diagnosed people with HIV-1 with a monoclonal anti-HIV-1 antibody with a CD4-binding site, 3BNC117, followed by a histone deacetylase inhibitor, romidepsin, shortly after ART initiation altered the course of HIV-1 infection (NCT03041012). The trial was undertaken in five hospitals in Denmark and two hospitals in the United Kingdom. The coprimary endpoints were analysis of initial virus …

Ngly1 Deficiency Affects Glycosaminoglycan Biosynthesis And Wnt Signaling Pathway In Mice, Amy Batten

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Individuals affected by NGLY1 Deficiency cannot properly deglycosylate and recycle certain proteins. Even though less than 100 people worldwide have been diagnosed with this rare autosomal recessive condition, thousands are affected by similar glycosylation disorders. Common phenotypic manifestations of NGLY1 Deficiency include severe neural and intellectual delay, impaired muscle and liver function, and seizures that may become intractable. Very little is currently known about the various mechanisms through which NGLY1 deficiency affects the body and this has led to a lack of viable treatment options for those afflicted. This experiment uses a loss-of-function (LOF) mouse model of NGLY1 Deficiency homologous …

Alu Dimorphism At The Pv92 Locus Of Chromosome 16 Is In Equilibrium For University Student Population, James M. Brooks, Mackenzie L. Thackston

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Alu is a retrotransposable element, which refers to its ability to be copied and move from one region of DNA to another DNA region. At the PV92 locus of chromosome 16, Alu is a 300 bp dimorphic insert that can either be present or absent. It does not encode a protein product and has lost the ability to transpose. It is specific to humans, and differences in genotype and allele frequencies between human populations are important tools in understanding evolution. In this research, data was obtained and analyzed from 269 students at Charleston Southern University (CSU) belonging to four different …

Environmental Bacteriophage Detection On Coastal Carolina University Campus, Madison Gentilo, Hailey Oldfield, Gavin Ockert, Paul E. Richardson

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. These viruses are found ubiquitously in the environment and are more abundant than any living organism on Earth, including bacteria. Eleven sites are designated for weekly sample collection on the campus of Coastal Carolina University. Water samples are filtered and amplified using strains of E. coli B and E. coli K12 to allow potential coliphages in the sample to proliferate to detectable levels. Plaque assays are used as a microbial screen for the presence of bacteriophage. Samples that test positively using the microbial test are analyzed through a molecular test using PCR to identify …

Ez Clear For Simple, Rapid, And Robust Mouse Whole Organ Clearing, Chih-Wei Hsu, Juan Cerda, Jason M Kirk, Williamson D Turner, Tara L Rasmussen, Carlos P Flores Suarez, Mary E Dickinson, Joshua D Wythe

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Tissue clearing for whole organ cell profiling has revolutionized biology and imaging for exploration of organs in three-dimensional space without compromising tissue architecture. But complicated, laborious procedures, or expensive equipment, as well as the use of hazardous, organic solvents prevent the widespread adoption of these methods. Here, we report a simple and rapid tissue clearing method, EZ Clear, that can clear whole adult mouse organs in 48 hr in just three simple steps. Samples stay at room temperature and remain hydrated throughout the clearing process, preserving endogenous and synthetic fluorescence, without altering sample size. After wholemount clearing and imaging, samples …

Zoonosis At The Huanan Seafood Market: A Critique, Daoyu Zhang, Gilles Demaneuf, Adrian Jones, Steven Massey, Steven Quay, Yuri Deigin, Louis R. Nemzer

Chemistry and Physics Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches, Lectures

Since the Hunan Seafood Market (HSM) in Wuhan, China was first suggested as the source of the COVID-19 pandemic in late January 2020, debate has continued over the evidence supporting this claim. Here, we assess the evidence provided in support of zoonotic spillover at the HSM as the origin of human infection of SARS-CoV-2. We find that the datasets and analyses put forward in support of zoonosis are biased, and lack sufficient verifiable data to support this hypothesis. The earliest COVID-19 case at the HSM was not at or near a wildlife stall, the distribution of cases at the HSM …

Dissection Of A Sensorimotor Circuit Underlying Pathogen Aversion In C Elegans, Adam Filipowicz, Jonathan Lalsiamthara, Alejandro Aballay

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Altering animal behavior to reduce pathogen exposure is a key line of defense against pathogen attack. In Caenorhabditis elegans, alterations in intestinal physiology caused by pathogen colonization and sensation of microbial metabolites may lead to activation of pathogen aversive behaviors ranging from aversive reflexes to learned avoidance. However, the neural circuitry between chemosensory neurons that sense pathogenic bacterial cues and the motor neurons responsible for avoidance-associated locomotion remains unknown.

RESULTS: Using C. elegans, we found that backward locomotion was a component of learned pathogen avoidance, as animals pre-exposed to Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Enterococcus faecalis showed reflexive aversion to drops …

A Trichy Situation, Kathryn Purple

Cumberland Mountain Naturalist

This issue of the Cumberland Mountain Naturalist discusses Dr Kathryn Purple's research concerning Trichomonosis carried by pigeons.

Bird Species Define The Relationship Between West Nile Viremia And Infectiousness To Culex Pipiens Mosquitoes, Jefferson A. Vaughan, Robert Newman, Michael J. Turrell

Biology Faculty Publications

The transmission cycle of West Nile virus (WNV) involves multiple species of birds. The relative importance of various bird species to the overall transmission is often inferred from the level and duration of viremia that they experience upon infection. Reports utilizing in vitro feeding techniques suggest that the source and condition of blood in which arboviruses are fed to mosquitoes can significantly alter the infectiousness of arbovirus to mosquitoes. We confirmed this using live hosts. A series of mosquito feedings with Culex pipiens was conducted on WNV-infected American robins and common grackles over a range of viremias. Mosquitoes were assayed …

The Effect Of Infection Risk On Female Blood Transcriptomics, Brenna M. G. Gormally, Patricia C. Lopes

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Defenses against pathogens can take on many forms. For instance, behavioral avoidance of diseased conspecifics is widely documented. Interactions with these infectious conspecifics can also, however, lead to physiological changes in uninfected animals, an effect that is much less well understood. These changes in behavior and physiology are particularly important to study in a reproductive context, where they can impact reproductive decisions and offspring quality. Here, we studied how an acute (3 h) exposure to an immune-challenged male affected female blood transcriptomics and behavior. We predicted that females paired with immune-challenged males would reduce eating and drinking behaviors (as avoidance …

Introduction To Common Molecular Biological Techniques Used In Research Laboratories, Dington Tan, Ruitang Deng, Winifer Ali, Qiwen Chen

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The main techniques used in molecular biology are cloning, PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), nucleic acid electrophoresis, DNA microarray analysis, in situ hybridization (HIS), sequencing (Sanger or Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)). Molecular biology techniques are extremely valuable for addressing a wide range of issues impacting the general state of humanity, in addition to investigating fundamental scientific concerns. Applications for molecular biology techniques include the prevention and treatment of disease, the creation of new protein products, and the modification of plants and animals to produce desired phenotypic traits.

Differences In Neurotoxic Outcomes Of Organophosphorus Pesticides Revealed Via Multi-Dimensional Screening In Adult And Regenerating Planarians, Danielle Ireland, S. Zhang, Veronica Bochenek , ' 22, J.-H. Hsieh, Christina Rabeler, Zane Meyer , '21, Eva-Maria S. Collins

Biology Faculty Works

Organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) are a chemically diverse class of commonly used insecticides. Epidemiological studies suggest that low dose chronic prenatal and infant exposures can lead to life-long neurological damage and behavioral disorders. While inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is the shared mechanism of acute OP neurotoxicity, OP-induced developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) can occur independently and/or in the absence of significant AChE inhibition, implying that OPs affect alternative targets. Moreover, different OPs can cause different adverse outcomes, suggesting that different OPs act through different mechanisms. These findings emphasize the importance of comparative studies of OP toxicity. Freshwater planarians are an invertebrate system that …

X-Linked Ubiquitin-Specific Peptidase 11 Increases Tauopathy Vulnerability In Women, Yan Yan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women experience significantly higher tau burden and increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) than men, yet the underlying mechanism for this vulnerability has not been explained. Here, we demonstrate through in vitro and in vivo models, as well as human AD brain tissue, that X-linked ubiquitin specific peptidase 11 (USP11) augments pathological tau aggregation via tau deubiquitination initiated at lysine-281. Removal of ubiquitin provides access for enzymatic tau acetylation at lysines 281 and 274. USP11 escapes complete X-inactivation, and female mice and people both exhibit higher USP11 levels than males. Genetic elimination of usp11 in a tauopathy mouse model preferentially …

Speciation Jigsaw Activity, Erika Crispo

Open Educational Resources

What is a species? Why are there so many species on the planet? The question of why we have different species of organisms was the key thesis of Charles Darwin’s most famous book, On the Origin of Species.While several definitions of what constitutes a species exists, the most common definition lies within thebiological species concept. This concept states that different species exist when two individuals of different sexes are unable to reproduce with one another to yield viable offspring in the wild. A major limitation of this definition is that it can only be applied to sexually reproducing organisms that …

The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 9 No. 5, John Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

There are a multitude of lessons learned from the last 3 years of the Covid-19 pandemic. But one truly stands out ...the total lack of understanding of the basic chemistry associated with the nitrogen cycle, which in Suffolk County, NY, continues to be declared as the “evil-nitrogen”. The major source of nitrogen into the water body comes from the atmosphere which is the predominate constituent of the air we breathe79% nitrogen. Nitrogen compounds contribution to eutrophication in freshwater (ponds & lakes) systems is legendary and, the concentration of nitrogen in marine waters has always been known as a limiting agent …