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Silk Production In Mature And Penultimate Female Dolomedes Scriptus, Dylan J. Haley

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Male Dolomedes scriptus are able to determine female maturity status by silk alone, as demonstrated by increased courtship in the presence of silk from mature females (Roach and Benson, unpublished). However, the mechanism by which the males determine female maturity status is unknown. It is possible that there are pheromonal signals indicating reproductive status. Specifically, I test whether mature female D. scriptus produce a different amount of silk than penultimate females, particularly if mature females produce more than immatures. If mature D. scriptus females produce more silk than penultimate females, male D. scriptus may determine maturity status of females via …

Revision, Description, And Diagnosis Of Adult And Larval Pycnopsyche Spp. (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae) Using Morphological And Molecular Methods, Matthew Green

All Dissertations

The genus Pycnopsyche Banks, 1905 (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae) is the 2nd most species-rich genus of Nearctic Limnephilidae. Larvae and adults are ecologically diverse and widespread throughout eastern North America. Larvae construct cases from mineral or plant material and are frequently used by biomonitoring professionals at the species level to monitor trends in water quality. However, only two species of Pycnopsyche are currently separable as larvae, with diagnosis limited by the number of unknown larvae associated with known adults. Using morphological and molecular data, the phylogenetic relationships among Pycnopsyche species and species groups were inferred with Bayesian and Maximum Likelihood analyses to …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Different Types Of Databases Reveals That Cdh1 Mrna And E-Cadherin Protein Are Not Downregulated In Most Carcinoma Tissues And Carcinoma Cell Lines, Brihget Sicairos, Shorna Alam, Yuchun Du

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

The CDH1 gene codes for the epithelial-cadherin (E-cad) protein, which is embedded in the plasma membrane of epithelial cells to form adherens junctions. E-cad is known to be essential for maintaining the integrity of epithelial tissues, and the loss of E-cad has been widely considered a hallmark of metastatic cancers enabling carcinoma cells to acquire the ability to migrate and invade nearby tissues. However, this conclusion has come under scrutiny.

Methods

To assess how CDH1 and E-cad expression changes during cancer progression, we analyzed multiple large transcriptomics, proteomics, and immunohistochemistry datasets on clinical cancer samples and cancer cell lines …

Cell-Specific Mechanisms Of Microrna Modulation Of Anoctamin-1 (Ano1) In Oral Cancer, Daniel Hou

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Anoctamin-1 (ANO1) is a calcium-gated chloride ion channel with multiple physiological roles, including transepithelial ion transport, smooth muscle contraction, salivary secretion, and nociception. Recently, ANO1 has been identified to play a key role in cancer progression. ANO1 is overexpressed in different types of cancer, including oral cancer. ANO1 overexpression is commonly the result of ANO1 gene amplification on the chromosome 11q13 locus. In cancer cells, ANO1 upregulation has been reported to promote cell proliferation and migration of tumor cells, whereas ANO1 downregulation induces apoptosis through multiple signaling pathways. As such, ANO1 is now considered a useful biomarker for cancer progression …

Interactive Effects Of Fungal Community Structure And Soil Moisture On Wyoming Big Sagebrush Performance, Arden Marlene Engel

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Large swathes of the North American sagebrush steppe have been converted to grazing and agricultural use. Remaining fragmented areas are threatened by invasive annual grasses and associated perpetuation of increased fire frequency, with efforts to restore sagebrush after fire largely unsuccessful. Lack of success may be due, in part, to poor interactions between sagebrush seed sourced from distant locations and unfamiliar soil fungi.

A greenhouse experiment was designed to evaluate effects of soil fungal community composition on sagebrush reestablishment by answering: (1) How does inoculation with ‘coevolved’ versus ‘foreign’ fungal inoculum impact sagebrush fitness? (2) How does moisture availability modify …

Mechanics For Inflammatory Cytokine-Promoted Breast Cancer Progression: Osm-Induced Loxl2 Leads To Extracellular Matrix Remodeling Of Collagen I And Subsequent Metastasis, Simion C. Dinca

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer has the highest prevalence of cancers in women in the USA; approximately 1 in 8 women will receive a diagnosis in their lifetime. Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) is the most commonly diagnosed breast cancer and presents a serious problem if it metastasizes, decreasing 5-year patient survival from ~98% to ~29%. Tumor cells grow in an environment that is known as the tumor microenvironment (TME). Due to inflammation, the TME of IDC is often saturated with neutrophil- and macrophage-derived proinflammatory cytokines including oncostatin M (OSM) and interleukin-1beta (IL-1β), both of which promote favorable conditions for metastasis. Modifications in the …

The Role Of Decorin And Biglycan In Cns Angiogenesis And Eae Recovery, Kristina Chapman

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a severe demyelinating disease of the Central Nervous System (CNS) associated with an autoimmune response directed against myelin antigens. Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels from preexisting ones, is a vital process for tissue regeneration and wound healing but is a pathological hallmark of both MS and an MS mouse model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). This type of aberrant angiogenesis is a fundamental event during an inflammatory injury, which is mutually dependent upon the intrusion of inflammatory molecules, disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), and immature vessel formation. In the EAE recovery phase, this process …

Understanding Temporal Dynamics Of Plant Specialized Metabolites In Response To Simulated Browsing In Winter, Bryanna Hope Bright

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Plants are continually defending themselves from the herbivores that consume them, often using an array of plant specialized metabolites (PSMs). Volatile organic compounds, including monoterpenes, are one such type of PSMs that can be emitted and induced by plants in response to mechanical damage and herbivory. These volatiles serve as direct defenses against herbivores and can alert neighboring plants about potential threats, resulting in protection against future attacks. However, how these chemicals change over time in response to browsing by vertebrates in the winter has received limited attention and is crucial to interpreting how monoterpenes defend plants against vertebrate herbivores. …

Fractally Sampling Diversity-Environment Relationships To Understand Plant Assemblage Health Across Spatial Scales, Elizabeth G. Simpson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Humans influence the health of ecosystems and rely on healthy ecosystems to support their livelihoods and well-being. By looking at how the parts of ecosystems interact we can understand and improve ecosystem health. Ecosystem interactions change across spatial scales or different size patches of area. For example, individual organisms interact with each other at small spatial scales, while at large spatial scales, communities of organisms interact with weather conditions. However, many research studies do not look at how ecosystem interactions change across spatial scales. To address this gap in ecological research, I use a fractal sampling design which samples at …

Thermal Tolerance, Physiology, And Microhabitat Use Of Eleutherodactylus Coqui Across An Elevational Gradient In Hawai‘I, Jack Marchetti

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The coqui frog (Eleutherodactylus coqui) is an invasive species in Hawai‘i, and has spread across much of the island. While elevational temperature differences are thought to restrict the coqui’s spread, it is unclear if they have resulted in changes to the coqui’s physiology and microhabitat use as it has expanded into higher elevations.

We first sought to determine if the coqui’s substrate use and baseline physiology differs between elevations. We found that frogs at high elevation were found closer to the forest floor and used different substrates than frogs from low and mid-elevations. This change in microhabitat use …

The Effects Of Recent Climate Change On Spring Phenology, With A Special Focus On Patterns Of Bee Foraging, Michael Stemkovski

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The date on which plants flower and on which bees begin to pollinate varies year-to-year depending on differences in weather. This seasonal timing is known as phenology, and it is already clear that climate change has pushed the spring phenology of many species earlier by increasing temperatures. This is particularly clear in flowering plants, but studying how and why the phenology of pollinators is shifting is more difficult. Most flowering plants rely on pollinators such as bees for their reproduction, and most bees rely on flowers for their sustenance, so bee and flower phenology has to overlap for the crucial …

Consequences Of Host Life Cycles For Symbiont Genome Evolution, Ashley Elizabeth Dederich

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Aphids are small insects that feed exclusively on plant sap, a notoriously low source of nutrients due to the high sugar content and low amino acid content. To make up for these deficiencies in nutrition, aphids harbor Buchnera aphidicola, a bacterial endosymbiont that resides in a specialized organ called the bacteriome. B. aphidicola provides essential amino acids and vitamins for the aphid in exchange for a safe place to live. Over the course of the symbiosis (established 160 million years ago), B. aphidicola has lost much of its genome, including essential genes for cell envelope synthesis, DNA replication and …

Microbial Associations With Metcalf's Tryonia, Tryonia Metcalfi (Gastropoda: Cochliopidae), An Imperiled Ciénega Endemic, Russell L. Minton, Kathryn E. Perez

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

The Chihuahuan Desert swamps are a hotspot for imperiled organisms including freshwater springsnails and bacteria. Many of these taxa are endemic to the desert and to the individual waterbodies where they occur. Efforts to conserve diversity in these threatened areas must account for the life history of the organisms, but also interactions between organisms including microbes. We documented the microbial assemblage associated with Tryonia metcalfi, a critically imperiled freshwater snail endemic to a ciénega system in western Texas. We identified 14 bacterial families in our snail samples and determined a core assemblage of 19 bacterial taxa (4 of which …

An Overview Of Serial Depletions Of Global Marine Fisheries 1950 To 2019, Alison Follmer

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Overfishing is a global issue that poses a significant risk to the entire ocean ecosystem in diminishing biodiversity and ecosystem function. This thesis examined the pattern and pace of fisheries depletions due to commercial fishing during the past 70 years. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Division of Fisheries and Aquaculture maintains a database of global hauls of marine taxa (reported in metric tonnes) from 1950 – 2019. These data were queried to determine the total number and sequence of fisheries depletions documented by the historic record. Analysis of this database showed progressive, linearly-increasing exploitation of …

Effect Of Mating On Male Choosiness In Bicyclus Anynana, Ellie Hope Magera

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Males mate multiply in many species, including butterflies, but little is known about whether the act of mating influences future male choosiness. We might expect mating to influence future preference, as previous studies have shown that pre-mating social experiences affect future male mate choice. To determine if initial male mate choice affects subsequent male mating decisions, we conducted behavioral assays using the subtropical nymphalid butterfly Bicyclus anynana. We tested three alternative hypotheses: 1) initial mating is a positive experience that strengthens male preference for the previously encountered phenotype; 2) males prefer mating with a different phenotype in their second …

Understanding The Role Of Heterodisulfide Reductase During Nitrogen Fixation By Methanosarcina Acetivorans, Grant Shelnut

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Methanosarcina acetivorans is a methanogenic archaeon (methanogen) that is important for several processes in our biosphere. A feature of interest within this methanogen is the enzyme nitrogenase which catalyzes the reduction of unusable dinitrogen gas (N₂) into a usable form of nitrogen, ammonia (NH₃). How electrons are transferred within M. acetivorans to nitrogenase during N₂ reduction is unknown. Heterodisulfide reductase (Hdr) is a key enzyme known to reduce the electron carrier protein ferredoxin, which is a direct electron donor to nitrogenase in bacteria. I hypothesized that cytoplasmic HdrA2B2C2 functions in electron transfer to nitrogenase and …

Hormonal Control Of Osmoregulatory Proteins In The Intestine Of Atlantic Killifish (Fundulus Heteroclitus), Karma Hine

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Atlantic killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) is a euryhaline fish, and thus able to maintain ionic and osmotic homeostasis in a wide range of salinities. When exposed to the dehydrating marine environment, the lost water is replenished through drinking seawater (SW) which is processed and absorbed in the intestine through the involvement of various cellular effectors. Intestinal water transport is osmotically driven by the active removal of NaCl from the gut lumen to the blood coupled to the precipitation of divalent Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺ due to the secretion of bicarbonate. These processes allow for successive removal of …

Determining The Functional Roles Of Short Open Reading Frames In Mycobacterium Smegmatis, Lauren Fox

Biological Sciences

The study examines the roles of a subset of short open reading frames (sORFs) in M. smegmatis using targeted mutagenesis and the subsequent examination of phenotypes associated with sORF mutation or overexpression. sORFs are defined as stretches of nucleic acid encoding a protein with a maximum of 50 amino acids. Genome annotation pipelines overlook sORFs encoding small proteins (sproteins) and, thus, sproteins in bacteria have gone unnoticed, even those that are expressed at levels similar to larger, well-described proteins. As a result of recent advances in ribosome profiling and mass spectrometry, hundreds of previously unannotated sORFs have been identified, increasing …

Investigating The Effects Of Vitamin K1 And K2 On The Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cell Line Sum159pt, Monica E. Alexander

Biological Sciences

Vitamin K serves as a cofactor in the post-translational carboxylation of glutamate to γ-carboxyglutamate (GLA) by the enzyme gamma-glutamyl carboxylase (GGCX). Vitamin K epoxide reductases (VKOR) then oxidize the vitamin K to regenerate the compound’s reduced form. While most of the known γcarboxylated proteins function in coagulation and bone homeostasis, the presence of GGCX and VKOR in a wide variety of tissues suggests that the vitamin and its pathway has more extensive physiological roles. Our previous research has assessed the expression of the vitamin K pathway in triple negative breast cancer cells (TNBCs) and compared the effects of vitamin K1 …

Characterization Of Protein-Protein Interactions In Quorum-Sensing Receptors From Gram Negative Bacteria, Jessica Schuh

Biological Sciences

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium capable of causing disease in immunocompromised individuals and individuals with underlying lung disorders. It controls the expression of a subset of its genes through quorum sensing, which is a cell-cell communication system involved in mediating the transition from individual to group behaviors. Group behaviors are cellular processes undertaken by the cell that are beneficial to the collective, such as biofilm formation – a key component of pathogenesis in the human lung. They rely on the production, accumulation, detection, and response to signal molecules called autoinducers. There are two acyl-homoserine lactone autoinducer quorum sensing systems in …

Nutritional Ecology Of The Western Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon Piscivorus Leucostoma), Jason Ortega

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nutritional ecology aims to understand the factors that shape the diets of animals, how these ingested meals are processed, and how the assimilated nutrients are used to shape an organism’s interactions with its environment. As environmental parameters are altered due to anthropogenic changes, the availability and quality of prey may be altered. The alteration of the nutritional landscape can be devastating to nutritional specialists, yet generalist predators may be able to cope with these changes. The western cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma) is a unique semiaquatic pitviper that can both forage along the land-water interface and in upland habitat when faced …

Assessing Stream Ecosystem Structure And Function In An Urban Canal And Logan River In Logan, Utah, Ellie Smith-Eskridge

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Humans have constructed canals to support agriculture, to mitigate flooding, and to discharge stormwater, especially in the Intermountain West. These canals are common in Cache Valley, where they receive flows from the Logan River during summer months. However, the ecological structure (e.g., water quality, freshwater invertebrates) and function (e.g., leaf decomposition) of these canals remains largely unknown. Studying ecosystem structure and function of these urban waterways is important because it can inform us of the health of these waterways.

My research had three objectives. First, I compared water chemistry, invertebrate assemblages, and leaf decomposition in an urban canal and the …

Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Field Modulates Electron Transport And Mitochondrial Structure And Function, Lucas Nelson Potter

Biomedical Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Pulsed power treatment has been used to induce regulated cell death (RCD) in cells or ablate tumors in animals. A subset of pulsed power as electroporation with high voltage and pulse duration of milliseconds is used for biomedical treatment to induce pores in the plasma membrane of cells. Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Fields (nsPEFs)– an extension of electroporation, uses waveforms with pulse durations on the order of 10-900 nanoseconds. nsPEF treatment has demonstrated intracellular effects for potential biomedical applications. In this work, nsPEF treatment is used to demonstrate changes that affect viability, plasma membrane permeability ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species) in the …

Investigating The Nectar Preferences Of Bumblebees While Foraging: Are Total Responses A Good Metric?, Alexander Entwistle, Becky Hansis-O'Neill, Aimee Dunlap Dr

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The declining population of bumblebees worldwide poses an unmistakable threat to ecological systems and biodiversity. Therefore, a deep understanding of the factors at play when bees are foraging is crucial to conservation efforts. This research aims to explore the energy that foraging bumblebees are willing to expend at a known food source after the food has stopped, and if these responses reveal sugar concentration preferences. In this experiment a novel approach was used, adapted from psychology research on addiction, to measure bee’s preferences for different concentration of sugar-water (nectar). First, how many rewards the bees earned if they were given …

Does A Bumblebee’S Size Influence Foraging Behavior?, Alametta Thompson-Hinton, Becky Hansis-O'Neill, Aimee Dunlap Dr

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Current studies of Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) have shown that they prefer plants that have a higher concentration of sugar over those that are of a lower concentration. However, there is little research analyzing the impact of the size difference amongst bumblebee foragers. During our experiment, we tested if larger bumblebees demonstrate a propensity to pursue nectar rewards more frequently compared to smaller bees. We hypothesized that the smaller bumblebees would forage less than the larger ones under a fixed ratio and three different sugar concentrations. We found that our hypothesis was partly correct: smaller bees initially earned fewer rewards, …

Amongst The Trails: Analysis Of A Small Predator Location Survey, Jesse Laseter

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Small predators, despite their size, play pivotal roles in ecosystem balance. Primarily, through their predation of herbivores, they indirectly benefit native plant communities. By reducing the damage from herbivory, herbaceous plants have a higher likelihood to thrive and proliferate. This is crucial in the restoration of Missouri glades. However, for small predators to achieve this, they rely heavily on their ability to navigate through their environment. One factor that may influence their ability to traverse their environment is recreational trails. Trails can cause habitat fragmentation by disconnecting one larger area into two. Trails also have significantly different microclimate than the …

Extracting And Analyzing Body Pitch Frequency To Test For Mimetic Convergence In Ithomiine Butterflies, Lauren Kim, Angela Robles, Victoria Valenzuela

Pacific Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference (PURCC)

No abstract provided.

Speyeria Beyond The Bay Area: Utility Of Dna Barcode In A Region Known For Mixed Phenotypes, Lorraine S. Lee, Alan H. Lin, Karine T. Nguyen, Jiwon Woo

Pacific Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference (PURCC)

No abstract provided.

Oak Apple Gall Natural History And Elementary Citizen Science, Christina Flores

Pacific Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference (PURCC)

No abstract provided.

Exploration Of Spider Silk Assembly, Natalie Naseib, Joshua Navarro, Nadia Duong, Seohyun Lee, Daniel Kim, Danbir Somal, Sevak Manucharyan, Josephine Kim, Seha Park, Alice Lan, Karen Kwong, Mason Tri

Pacific Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference (PURCC)

No abstract provided.