Digital Commons Network^™

Progress On Identifying And Characterizing The Human Proteome: 2018 Metrics From The Hupo Human Proteome Project., Gilbert S Omenn, Lydie Lane, Christopher M Overall, Fernando J Corrales, Jochen M Schwenk, Young-Ki Paik, Jennifer E Van Eyk, Siqi Liu, Michael Snyder, Mark S Baker, Eric W Deutsch

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

The Human Proteome Project (HPP) annually reports on progress throughout the field in credibly identifying and characterizing the human protein parts list and making proteomics an integral part of multiomics studies in medicine and the life sciences. NeXtProt release 2018-01-17, the baseline for this sixth annual HPP special issue of the Journal of Proteome Research, contains 17 470 PE1 proteins, 89% of all neXtProt predicted PE1-4 proteins, up from 17 008 in release 2017-01-23 and 13 975 in release 2012-02-24. Conversely, the number of neXtProt PE2,3,4 missing proteins has been reduced from 2949 to 2579 to 2186 over the past …

Deciphering The Role Of Human Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase 1 (Nat1) In Breast Cancer Cell Metabolism Using A Systems Biology Approach., Samantha Marie Carlisle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Human arylamine N-acetyltransferase 1 (NAT1) is a phase II xenobiotic metabolizing enzyme found in almost all tissues. NAT1 can additionally hydrolyze acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) in the absence of an arylamine substrate. NAT1 expression varies inter-individually and is elevated in several cancers including estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancers. Additionally, multiple studies have shown the knockdown of NAT1, by both small molecule inhibition and siRNA methods, in breast cancer cells leads to decreased invasive ability and proliferation and decreased anchorage-independent colony formation. However, the exact mechanism by which NAT1 expression affects cancer risk and progression remains unclear. Additionally, consequences …

Methylation-Based Enrichment Facilitates Low-Cost, Noninvasive Genomic Scale Sequencing Of Populations From Feces, Kenneth L. Chiou, Christina M. Bergey

United States Public Health Resources

Obtaining high-quality samples from wild animals is a major obstacle for genomic studies of many taxa, particularly at the population level, as collection methods for such samples are typically invasive. DNA from feces is easy to obtain noninvasively, but is dominated by bacterial and other non-host DNA. The high proportion of non-host DNA drastically reduces the efficiency of high-throughput sequencing for host animal genomics. To address this issue, we developed an inexpensive capture method for enriching host DNA from noninvasive fecal samples. Our method exploits natural differences in CpG-methylation density between vertebrate and bacterial genomes to preferentially bind and isolate …

The Role Of Prrx1 And Snai2 As Master Regulators Of Fibroblast Identity, Huda A. Alzahrani

Masters Theses

Mammalian development involves a complex system of regulatory signals and reactions, leading to the creation of distinct tissues with specific structures and functions controlled by various gene expression profiles. Tissue-specific gene expression is by controlled specific combinations of transcription factors and cofactors that dictate cell differentiation via activation and repression of genes in mammalian cells.

Whole genome microarray analyses of fibroblasts have revealed candidate genes that may serve as master regulators of fibroblast identity, such as Prrx1 and Snai2, that activate downstream genes such as Bmp3, Twist, Shox2, Cfos, Slug, Sema3A, Spp1, and Col1a1. A previous study showed that Prrx1 …

Development Of Biclustering Techniques For Gene Expression Data Modeling And Mining, Juan Xie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The next-generation sequencing technologies can generate large-scale biological data with higher resolution, better accuracy, and lower technical variation than the arraybased counterparts. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) can generate genome-scale gene expression data in biological samples at a given moment, facilitating a better understanding of cell functions at genetic and cellular levels. The abundance of gene expression datasets provides an opportunity to identify genes with similar expression patterns across multiple conditions, i.e., co-expression gene modules (CEMs). Genomescale identification of CEMs can be modeled and solved by biclustering, a twodimensional data mining technique that allows clustering of rows and columns in a gene …

Novel Computational Methods For Sequencing Data Analysis: Mapping, Query, And Classification, Xinan Liu

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Over the past decade, the evolution of next-generation sequencing technology has considerably advanced the genomics research. As a consequence, fast and accurate computational methods are needed for analyzing the large data in different applications. The research presented in this dissertation focuses on three areas: RNA-seq read mapping, large-scale data query, and metagenomics sequence classification.

A critical step of RNA-seq data analysis is to map the RNA-seq reads onto a reference genome. This dissertation presents a novel splice alignment tool, MapSplice3. It achieves high read alignment and base mapping yields and is able to detect splice junctions, gene fusions, and circular …

Interaction Of Cocoa Powder With Intestinal Microbiota, Martha M. Escoto Sabillon

LSU Master's Theses

Cocoa is the fully fermented and dried seed of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao L.) which has prebiotic properties, due to their high concentration of polyphenols. Therefore, the ingestion of cocoa could cause changes in the proportions of the intestinal microbiota that can influence the intestinal immune response. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of alkalization process of the cocoa bean in the diversity of the gut microbiota. The samples were “lavado” unprocessed cocoa powder, “natural” unprocessed cocoa powder, “D-11-S” as alkalized cocoa powder, “D-11-B” heavily alkalized cocoa powder, and raw cocoa “shells” and a control …

Rare Coding Variants In Plcg2, Abi3, And Trem2 Implicate Microglial-Mediated Innate Immunity In Alzheimer's Disease., Rebecca Sims, Sven J Van Der Lee, Adam C Naj, Céline Bellenguez, Nandini Badarinarayan, Johanna Jakobsdottir, Brian W Kunkle, Anne Boland, Rachel Raybould, Joshua C Bis, Eden R Martin, Benjamin Grenier-Boley, Stefanie Heilmann-Heimbach, Vincent Chouraki, Amanda B Kuzma, Kristel Sleegers, Maria Vronskaya, Agustin Ruiz, Robert R Graham, Robert Olaso, Per Hoffmann, Megan L Grove, Badri N Vardarajan, Mikko Hiltunen, Markus M Nöthen, Charles C White, Kara L Hamilton-Nelson, Jacques Epelbaum, Wolfgang Maier, Seung-Hoan Choi, Gary W Beecham, Cécile Dulary, Stefan Herms, Albert V Smith, Cory C Funk, Céline Derbois, Andreas J Forstner, Shahzad Ahmad, Hongdong Li, Delphine Bacq, Denise Harold, Claudia L Satizabal, Otto Valladares, Alessio Squassina, Rhodri Thomas, Jennifer A Brody, Liming Qu, Pascual Sánchez-Juan, Taniesha Morgan, Frank J Wolters, Yi Zhao, Florentino Sanchez Garcia, Nicola Denning, Myriam Fornage, John Malamon, Maria Candida Deniz Naranjo, Elisa Majounie, Thomas H Mosley, Beth Dombroski, David Wallon, Michelle K Lupton, Josée Dupuis, Patrice Whitehead, Laura Fratiglioni, Christopher Medway, Xueqiu Jian, Shubhabrata Mukherjee, Lina Keller, Kristelle Brown, Honghuang Lin, Laura B Cantwell, Francesco Panza, Bernadette Mcguinness, Sonia Moreno-Grau, Jeremy D Burgess, Vincenzo Solfrizzi, Petra Proitsi, Hieab H Adams, Mariet Allen, Davide Seripa, Pau Pastor, L Adrienne Cupples, Nathan D Price, Didier Hannequin, Ana Frank-García, Daniel Levy, Paramita Chakrabarty, Paolo Caffarra, Ina Giegling, Alexa S Beiser, Vilmantas Giedraitis, Harald Hampel, Melissa E Garcia, Xue Wang, Lars Lannfelt, Patrizia Mecocci, Gudny Eiriksdottir, Paul K Crane, Florence Pasquier, Virginia Boccardi, Isabel Henández, Robert C Barber, Martin Scherer, Lluis Tarraga, Perrie M Adams, Markus Leber, Yuning Chen, Marilyn S Albert, Steffi Riedel-Heller, Valur Emilsson, Duane Beekly, Anne Braae, Reinhold Schmidt, Deborah Blacker, Carlo Masullo, Helena Schmidt, Rachelle S Doody, Gianfranco Spalletta, W T Longstreth, Thomas J Fairchild, Paola Bossù, Oscar L Lopez, Matthew P Frosch, Eleonora Sacchinelli, Bernardino Ghetti, Qiong Yang, Ryan M Huebinger, Frank Jessen, Shuo Li, M Ilyas Kamboh, John Morris, Oscar Sotolongo-Grau, Mindy J Katz, Chris Corcoran, Melanie Dunstan, Amy Braddel, Charlene Thomas, Alun Meggy, Rachel Marshall, Amy Gerrish, Jade Chapman, Miquel Aguilar, Sarah Taylor, Matt Hill, Mònica Díez Fairén, Angela Hodges, Bruno Vellas, Hilkka Soininen, Iwona Kloszewska, Makrina Daniilidou, James Uphill, Yogen Patel, Joseph T Hughes, Jenny Lord, James Turton, Annette M Hartmann, Roberta Cecchetti, Chiara Fenoglio, Maria Serpente, Marina Arcaro, Carlo Caltagirone, Maria Donata Orfei, Antonio Ciaramella, Sabrina Pichler, Manuel Mayhaus, Wei Gu, Alberto Lleó, Juan Fortea, Rafael Blesa, Imelda S Barber, Keeley Brookes, Chiara Cupidi, Raffaele Giovanni Maletta, David Carrell, Sandro Sorbi, Susanne Moebus, Maria Urbano, Alberto Pilotto, Johannes Kornhuber, Paolo Bosco, Stephen Todd, David Craig, Janet Johnston, Michael Gill, Brian Lawlor, Aoibhinn Lynch, Nick C Fox, John Hardy, Roger L Albin, Liana G Apostolova, Steven E Arnold, Sanjay Asthana, Craig S Atwood, Clinton T Baldwin, Lisa L Barnes, Sandra Barral, Thomas G Beach, James T Becker, Eileen H Bigio, Thomas D Bird, Bradley F Boeve, James D Bowen, Adam Boxer, James R Burke, Jeffrey M Burns, Joseph D Buxbaum, Nigel J Cairns, Chuanhai Cao, Chris S Carlson, Cynthia M Carlsson, Regina M Carney, Minerva M Carrasquillo, Steven L Carroll, Carolina Ceballos Diaz, Helena C Chui, David G Clark, David H Cribbs, Elizabeth A Crocco, Charles Decarli, Malcolm Dick, Ranjan Duara, Denis A Evans, Kelley M Faber, Kenneth B Fallon, David W Fardo, Martin R Farlow, Steven Ferris, Tatiana M Foroud, Douglas R Galasko, Marla Gearing, Daniel H Geschwind, John R Gilbert, Neill R Graff-Radford, Robert C Green, John H Growdon, Ronald L Hamilton, Lindy E Harrell, Lawrence S Honig, Matthew J Huentelman, Christine M Hulette, Bradley T Hyman, Gail P Jarvik, Erin Abner, Lee-Way Jin, Gyungah Jun, Anna Karydas, Jeffrey A Kaye, Ronald Kim, Neil W Kowall, Joel H Kramer, Frank M Laferla, James J Lah, James B Leverenz, Allan I Levey, Ge Li, Andrew P Lieberman, Kathryn L Lunetta, Constantine G Lyketsos, Daniel C Marson, Frank Martiniuk, Deborah C Mash, Eliezer Masliah, Wayne C Mccormick, Susan M Mccurry, Andrew N Mcdavid, Ann C Mckee, Marsel Mesulam, Bruce L Miller, Carol A Miller, Joshua W Miller, John C Morris, Jill R Murrell, Amanda J Myers, Sid O'Bryant, John M Olichney, Vernon S Pankratz, Joseph E Parisi, Henry L Paulson, William Perry, Elaine Peskind, Aimee Pierce, Wayne W Poon, Huntington Potter, Joseph F Quinn, Ashok Raj, Murray Raskind, Barry Reisberg, Christiane Reitz, John M Ringman, Erik D Roberson, Ekaterina Rogaeva, Howard J Rosen, Roger N Rosenberg, Mark A Sager, Andrew J Saykin, Julie A Schneider, Lon S Schneider, William W Seeley, Amanda G Smith, Joshua A Sonnen, Salvatore Spina, Robert A Stern, Russell H Swerdlow, Rudolph E Tanzi, Tricia A Thornton-Wells, John Q Trojanowski, Juan C Troncoso, Vivianna M Van Deerlin, Linda J Van Eldik, Harry V Vinters, Jean Paul Vonsattel, Sandra Weintraub, Kathleen A Welsh-Bohmer, Kirk C Wilhelmsen, Jennifer Williamson, Thomas S Wingo, Randall L Woltjer, Clinton B Wright, Chang-En Yu, Lei Yu, Fabienne Garzia, Feroze Golamaully, Gislain Septier, Sebastien Engelborghs, Rik Vandenberghe, Peter P De Deyn, Carmen Muñoz Fernadez, Yoland Aladro Benito, Hakan Thonberg, Charlotte Forsell, Lena Lilius, Anne Kinhult-Stählbom, Lena Kilander, Rosemarie Brundin, Letizia Concari, Seppo Helisalmi, Anne Maria Koivisto, Annakaisa Haapasalo, Vincent Dermecourt, Nathalie Fievet, Olivier Hanon, Carole Dufouil, Alexis Brice, Karen Ritchie, Bruno Dubois, Jayanadra J Himali, C Dirk Keene, Joann Tschanz, Annette L Fitzpatrick, Walter A Kukull, Maria Norton, Thor Aspelund, Eric B Larson, Ron Munger, Jerome I Rotter, Richard B Lipton, María J Bullido, Albert Hofman, Thomas J Montine, Eliecer Coto, Eric Boerwinkle, Ronald C Petersen, Victoria Alvarez, Fernando Rivadeneira, Eric M Reiman, Maura Gallo, Christopher J O'Donnell, Joan S Reisch, Amalia Cecilia Bruni, Donald R Royall, Martin Dichgans, Mary Sano, Daniela Galimberti, Peter St George-Hyslop, Elio Scarpini, Debby W Tsuang, Michelangelo Mancuso, Ubaldo Bonuccelli, Ashley R Winslow, Antonio Daniele, Chuang-Kuo Wu, Oliver Peters, Benedetta Nacmias, Matthias Riemenschneider, Reinhard Heun, Carol Brayne, David C Rubinsztein, Jose Bras, Rita Guerreiro, Ammar Al-Chalabi, Christopher E Shaw, John Collinge, David Mann, Magda Tsolaki, Jordi Clarimón, Rebecca Sussams, Simon Lovestone, Michael C O'Donovan, Michael J Owen, Timothy W Behrens, Simon Mead, Alison M Goate, Andre G Uitterlinden, Clive Holmes, Carlos Cruchaga, Martin Ingelsson, David A Bennett, John Powell, Todd E Golde, Caroline Graff, Philip L De Jager, Kevin Morgan, Nilufer Ertekin-Taner, Onofre Combarros, Bruce M Psaty, Peter Passmore, Steven G Younkin, Claudine Berr, Vilmundur Gudnason, Dan Rujescu, Dennis W Dickson, Jean-François Dartigues, Anita L Destefano, Sara Ortega-Cubero, Hakon Hakonarson, Dominique Campion, Merce Boada, John Keoni Kauwe, Lindsay A Farrer, Christine Van Broeckhoven, M Arfan Ikram, Lesley Jones, Jonathan L Haines, Christophe Tzourio, Lenore J Launer, Valentina Escott-Price, Richard Mayeux, Jean-François Deleuze, Najaf Amin, Peter A Holmans, Margaret A Pericak-Vance, Philippe Amouyel, Cornelia M Van Duijn, Alfredo Ramirez, Li-San Wang, Jean-Charles Lambert, Sudha Seshadri, Julie Williams, Gerard D Schellenberg

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

We identified rare coding variants associated with Alzheimer's disease in a three-stage case-control study of 85,133 subjects. In stage 1, we genotyped 34,174 samples using a whole-exome microarray. In stage 2, we tested associated variants (P < 1 × 10

Lichen Conservation In Eastern North America: Population Genomics, Climate Change, And Translocations, Jessica Allen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Conservation biology is a scientific discipline that draws on methods from diverse fields to address specific conservation concerns and inform conservation actions. This field is overwhelmingly focused on charismatic animals and vascular plants, often ignoring other diverse and ecologically important groups. This trend is slowly changing in some ways; for example, increasing number of fungal species are being added to the IUCN Red-List. However, a strong taxonomic bias still exists. Here I contribute four research chapters to further the conservation of lichens, one group of frequently overlooked organisms. I address specific conservation concerns in eastern North America using modern methods. …

A Comparison Of Nucleosome Organization In Drosophila Cell Lines, Rebecca L. Martin, John Maiorano, Greg J. Beitel, John F. Marko, Graham Mcvicker, Yvonne N. Fondufe-Mittendorf

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Changes in the distribution of nucleosomes along the genome influence chromatin structure and impact gene expression by modulating the accessibility of DNA to transcriptional machinery. However, the role of genome-wide nucleosome positioning in gene expression and in maintaining differentiated cell states remains poorly understood. Drosophila melanogastercell lines represent distinct tissue types and exhibit cell-type specific gene expression profiles. They thus could provide a useful tool for investigating cell-type specific nucleosome organization of an organism’s genome. To evaluate this possibility, we compared genome-wide nucleosome positioning and occupancy in five different Drosophila tissue-specific cell lines, and in reconstituted chromatin, and then …

Rseqrep: Rna-Seq Reports, An Open-Source Cloud-Enabled Framework For Reproducible Rna-Seq Data Processing, Analysis, And Result Reporting, Travis L. Jensen, Michael Frasketi, Kevin Conway, Leigh Villarroel, Heather Hill, Konstantinos Krampis, Johannes B. Goll

Publications and Research

RNA-Seq is increasingly being used to measure human RNA expression on a genome-wide scale. Expression profiles can be interrogated to identify and functionally characterize treatment-responsive genes. Ultimately, such controlled studies promise to reveal insights into molecular mechanisms of treatment effects, identify biomarkers, and realize personalized medicine. RNA-Seq Reports (RSEQREP) is a new open-source cloud-enabled framework that allows users to execute start-to-end gene-level RNA-Seq analysis on a preconfigured RSEQREP Amazon Virtual Machine Image (AMI) hosted by AWS or on their own Ubuntu Linux machine. The framework works with unstranded, stranded, and paired-end sequence FASTQ files stored locally, on Amazon Simple Storage …

Inhibition Of Mammalian Glycoprotein Ykl-40 Identification Of The Physiological Ligand, Abhishek A. Kognole, Christina M. Payne

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

YKL-40 is a mammalian glycoprotein associated with progression, severity, and prognosis of chronic inflammatory diseases and a multitude of cancers. Despite this well documented association, identification of the lectin′s physiological ligand and, accordingly, biological function has proven experimentally difficult. YKL-40 has been shown to bind chito-oligosaccharides; however, the production of chitin by the human body has not yet been documented. Possible alternative ligands include proteoglycans, polysaccharides, and fibers like collagen, all of which makeup the extracellular matrix. It is likely that YKL-40 is interacting with these alternative polysaccharides or proteins within the body, extending its function to cell biological roles …

Review Of The Algal Biology Program Within The National Alliance For Advanced Biofuels And Bioproducts, Clifford J. Unkefer, Richard T. Sayre, Jon K. Magnuson, Daniel B. Anderson, Ivan Baxter, Ian K. Balby, Judith K. Brown, Michael Carleton, Rose Ann Cattolico, Taraka Dale, Timothy P. Devarenne, C. Meghan Downes, Susan K. Dutcher, David T. Fox, Ursula Goodenough, Jan Jaworski, Jonathan E. Holladay, David M. Kramer, Andrew T. Koppisch, Mary S. Lipton, Babetta L. Marrone, Margaret Mccormick, István Molnár, John B. Mott, Kimberly L. Ogden, Ellen A. Panisko, Matteo Pellegrini, Juergen Polle, James W. Richardson, Martin Sabarsky, Shawn R. Starkenburg, Gary D. Stormo, Munehiro Teshima, Scott N. Twary, Pat J. Unkefer, Joshua S. Yuan, José A. Olivares

Publications and Research

In 2010,when the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB) consortiumbegan, littlewas known about themolecular basis of algal biomass or oil production. Very fewalgal genome sequenceswere available and efforts to identify the best-producing wild species through bioprospecting approaches had largely stalled after the U.S. Department of Energy's Aquatic Species Program. This lack of knowledge included how reduced carbon was partitioned into storage products like triglycerides or starch and the role played bymetabolite remodeling in the accumulation of energy-dense storage products. Furthermore, genetic transformation and metabolic engineering approaches to improve algal biomass and oil yields were in their infancy. Genome …

Selection Of Efficient Taq Dna Polymerase To Optimize T-Dna Genotyping Method For Rapid Detection Of Mutant Arabidopsis Thaliana Plants, Inna B. Chastukhina, Liliia R. Nigmatullina, Lia R. Valeeva, Eugene V. Shakirov

Biological Sciences Faculty Research

Plants harbor homologues of various animal genes involved in phosphorus metabolism, telomere biology and other cellular processes. Compared to experiments with many other multicellular organisms, research in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana takes advantage of short generation time and an ever increasing arsenal of genetic and transgenic tools, including large collections of T-DNA knockout and activation lines. The availability of thousands of publicly available transgenic Arabidopsis lines provides a unique opportunity to address a number of important biological questions. However, identification of individual T-DNA mutant plants from a pool of seeds provided by a biological stock distribution center remains a …

Plasmid Dna Bind And Elute Chromatography Using Borosilicate Filters And Filter Holders, Stacey D. Floyd, Camille S. Baird, Jordan Finnell, Tsz Ming Tsang, Robert C. Davis, Kenneth A. Christensen

Student Works

This research has been completed to determine whether plasmid DNA will bind to a simple borosilicate filter in a reusable filter holder, and whether it can be released in a controlled procedure after a wash has been done to eliminate impurities.

The motivation for this is to help small research groups, both in educational settings as well as in other small research settings be able to study isolated DNA without much of the expense generally associated with purification kits and to remove the limitations on trial numbers imposed by the expense of each individual isolation kit.

Medical research, forensics, and …

Virus–Host Interactions: Insights From The Replication Cycle Of The Large Paramecium Bursaria Chlorella Virus, Elad Milrot, Yael Mutsafi, Yael Fridmann-Sirkis, Eyal Shimoni, Katya Rechav, James Gurnon, James L. Van Etten, Abraham Minsky

James Van Etten Publications

The increasing interest in cytoplasmic factories generated by eukaryotic-infecting viruses stems from the realization that these highly ordered assemblies may contribute fundamental novel insights to the functional significance of order in cellular biology. Here, we report the formation process and structural features of the cytoplasmic factories of the large dsDNA virus Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus 1 (PBCV-1). By combining diverse imaging techniques, including scanning transmission electron microscopy tomography and focused ion beam technologies, we show that the architecture and mode of formation of PBCV-1 factories are significantly different from those generated by their evolutionary relatives Vaccinia and Mimivirus. Specifically, PBCV-1 …

Differential Contribution Of Genomic Regions To Marked Genetic Variation And Prediction Of Quantitative Traits In Broiler Chickens, Rostam Abdollaha- Arpanahi, Gota Morota, Bruno D. Valente, Andreas Kranis, Guilherme J. M. Rosa, Daniel Gianola

Department of Animal Science: Faculty Publications

Background: Genome-wide association studies in humans have found enrichment of trait-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in coding regions of the genome and depletion of these in intergenic regions. However, a recent release of the ENCyclopedia of DNA elements showed that ~80 % of the human genome has a biochemical function. Similar studies on the chicken genome are lacking, thus assessing the relative contribution of its genic and non-genic regions to variation is relevant for biological studies and genetic improvement of chicken populations. Methods: A dataset including 1351 birds that were genotyped with the 600K Affymetrix platform was used. We partitioned …

Evolution Of New Duplicate Genes In Arabidopsis Thaliana, Nicholas Curtis Marowsky

Wayne State University Theses

Abstract

Gene duplication is one of the major mechanisms by which organisms expand their genomes. The material added to the genome can then be acted upon by mutation and natural selection to increase the fitness of the species. By studying these duplicate sequences we can understand the process by which species evolve new functional genes. In a previous paper we identified 100 new duplicate genes through a genome wide comparison between A. thaliana and related species. We selected three of these new duplicate genes and investigated more closely their sequence and expression divergence from their parental gene. The three new …

Primer Efficacy In The Dna Barcoding Of Spiders, Rhennetta Jo Bork

Honors Program Theses

DNA barcoding is the process of amplifying a 650 base pair segment of the sequence of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase (COI), and amplifying this gene with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It is used to help identify and distinguish animal species and also to help determine genetic differences in species. DNA barcoding can be especially useful when working with spiders since they tend to be very small and hard to distinguish. However, achieving a DNA barcode can be difficult and thus techniques to improve the method of DNA barcoding can be helpful. This research looked into the different …

Developing A Gene Editing System To Study Haplodiploidy In The Jewel Wasp, Nasonia Vitripennis, Emily A. Muller

Scripps Senior Theses

Hymenopteran insects, which include all ants, bees and wasps, reproduce through a poorly understood form of reproduction known as haplodiploidy. A promising experimental system for understanding this developmental process is the jewel wasp, Nasonia vitripennis. A critical aspect of using Nasonia as a model is establishing an effective means for editing specific genes of interest so that their functions can be studied through genetic means. For my thesis research, I performed a pilot study of the gene editing method known as CRISPR in Nasonia. I targeted the single heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) gene present in the Nasonia genome …

Caspase-3 Mediates The Pathogenic Effect Of Yersinia Pestis Yopm In Liver Of C57bl/6 Mice And Contributes To Yopm's Function In Spleen, Zhan Ye, Amanda A. Gorman, Annette M. Uittenbogaard, Tanya Myers-Morales, Alan M. Kaplan, Donald A. Cohen, Susan C. Straley

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

The virulence protein YopM of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis has different dominant effects in liver and spleen. Previous studies focused on spleen, where YopM inhibits accumulation of inflammatory dendritic cells. In the present study we focused on liver, where PMN function may be directly undermined by YopM without changes in inflammatory cell numbers in the initial days of infection, and foci of inflammation are easily identified. Mice were infected with parent and ΔyopM-1 Y. pestis KIM5, and effects of YopM were assessed by immunohistochemistry and determinations of bacterial viable numbers in organs. The bacteria were found …

Mapping Regions Of Rnf168 Required For Its Degradation By Icp0, Andrea Cyr, Matthew Weitzman

e-Research: A Journal of Undergraduate Work

Viruses establish infection by overtaking host cell processes and developing mechanisms that promote viral replication. Herpes simplex virus undergoes lytic and latent cycles of infection throughout the lifespan of its host. The viral genome is transcriptionally silent during latency, but viral proteins are produced upon reactivation. Herpes simplex virus type 1 encodes the ICP0 protein, an E3 ubiquitin ligase required for reactivation from latency of the infectious virus. The immediate-early protein ICP0 regulates the herpes simplex virus by activating viral gene expression thereby initiating lytic infection. Cellular proteins are degraded by ICP0, promoting the virus to enter the lytic cycle. …

Copy Number Variation In Chickens: A Review And Future Prospects, Xiaofei Wang, Shannon Byers

Biology Faculty Research

DNA sequence variations include nucleotide substitution, deletion, insertion, translocation and inversion. Deletion or insertion of a large DNA segment in the genome, referred to as copy number variation (CNV), has caught the attention of many researchers recently. It is believed that CNVs contribute significantly to genome variability, and thus contribute to phenotypic variability. In chickens, genome-wide surveys with array comparative genome hybridization (aCGH), SNP chip detection or whole genome sequencing have revealed a large number of CNVs. A large portion of chicken CNVs involves protein coding or regulatory sequences. A few CNVs have been demonstrated to be the determinant factors …

Egonet: Identification Of Human Disease Ego-Network Modules, Rendong Yang, Yun Bai, Zhaohui Qin, Tianwei Yu

PCOM Scholarly Works

Background: Mining novel biomarkers from gene expression profiles for accurate disease classification is challenging due to small sample size and high noise in gene expression measurements. Several studies have proposed integrated analyses of microarray data and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks to find diagnostic subnetwork markers. However, the neighborhood relationship among network member genes has not been fully considered by those methods, leaving many potential gene markers unidentified. The main idea of this study is to take full advantage of the biological observation that genes associated with the same or similar diseases commonly reside in the same neighborhood of molecular networks.Results: …

Evidence For Finely-Regulated Asynchronous Growth Of Toxoplasma Gondii Cysts Based On Data-Driven Model Selection, Adam M. Sullivan, Xiaopeng Zhao, Yasuhiro Suzuki, Eri Ochiai, Stephen Crutcher, Michael A. Gilchrist

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Toxoplasma gondii establishes a chronic infection by forming cysts preferentially in the brain. This chronic infection is one of the most common parasitic infections in humans and can be reactivated to develop life-threatening toxoplasmic encephalitis in immunocompromised patients. Host-pathogen interactions during the chronic infection include growth of the cysts and their removal by both natural rupture and elimination by the immune system. Analyzing these interactions is important for understanding the pathogenesis of this common infection. We developed a differential equation framework of cyst growth and employed Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) to determine the growth and removal functions that best describe …

Transcription Factor Binding Profiles Reveal Cyclic Expression Of Human Protein-Coding Genes And Non-Coding Rnas, Chao Cheng, Matthew Ung, Gavin D. Grant, Michael L. Whitfield

Dartmouth Scholarship

Cell cycle is a complex and highly supervised process that must proceed with regulatory precision to achieve successful cellular division. Despite the wide application, microarray time course experiments have several limitations in identifying cell cycle genes. We thus propose a computational model to predict human cell cycle genes based on transcription factor (TF) binding and regulatory motif information in their promoters. We utilize ENCODE ChIP-seq data and motif information as predictors to discriminate cell cycle against non-cell cycle genes. Our results show that both the trans- TF features and the cis- motif features are predictive of cell cycle genes, and …

Functional Annotation And Comparative Analysis Of A Zygopteran Transcriptome, Alexander G. Shanku, Mark A. Mcpeek, Andrew D. Kern

Dartmouth Scholarship

In this paper we present a de novo assembly of the transcriptome of the damselfly (Enallagma hageni) through the use of 454 pyrosequencing. E. hageni is a member of the suborder Zygoptera, in the order Odonata, and Odonata organisms form the basal lineage of the winged insects (Pterygota). To date, sequence data used in phylogenetic analysis of Enallagma species have been derived from either mitochondrial DNA or ribosomal nuclear DNA. This Enallagma transcriptome contained 31,661 contigs that were assembled and translated into 14,813 individual open reading frames. Using these data, we constructed an extensive dataset of 634 orthologous nuclear protein-encoding …

Characterization Of The Heart Transcriptome Of The White Shark (Carcharodon Carcharias), Vincent P. Richards, Haruo Suzuki, Michael J. Stanhope, Mahmood S. Shivji

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Background: The white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is a globally distributed, apex predator possessing physical, physiological, and behavioral traits that have garnered it significant public attention. In addition to interest in the genetic basis of its form and function, as a representative of the oldest extant jawed vertebrate lineage, white sharks are also of conservation concern due to their small population size and threat from overfishing. Despite this, surprisingly little is known about the biology of white sharks, and genomic resources are unavailable. To address this deficit, we combined Roche-454 and Illumina sequencing technologies to characterize the first …

Cephalopod Genomics: A Plan Of Strategies And Organization, Caroline B. Albertin, Laure Bonnaud, C. Titus Brown, Wendy J. Crookes-Goodson, Rute R. Da Fonseca, Carlo Di Cristo, Brian P. Dilkes, Eric Edsinger-Gonzales, Robert M. Freeman Jr., Roger T. Hanlon, Kristen M. Koenig, Annie R. Lindgren, Mark Q. Martindale, Patrick Minx, Leonid L. Moroz, Marie-Therese Nödl, Spencer V. Nyholm, Atsushi Ogura, Judit R. Pungor, Joshua J. C. Rosenthal, Erich M. Schwarz, Shuichi Shigeno, Jan M. Strugnell, Tim Wollesen, Guojie Zhang, Clifton W. Ragsdale

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Cephalopod Sequencing Consortium (CephSeq Consortium) was established at a NESCent Catalysis Group Meeting, “Paths to Cephalopod Genomics- Strategies, Choices, Organization,” held in Durham, North Carolina, USA on May 24-27, 2012. Twenty-eight participants representing nine countries (Austria, Australia, China, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Spain and the USA) met to address the pressing need for genome sequencing of cephalopod mollusks. This group, drawn from cephalopod biologists, neuroscientists, developmental and evolutionary biologists, materials scientists, bioinformaticians and researchers active in sequencing, assembling and annotating genomes, agreed on a set of cephalopod species of particular importance for initial sequencing and developed strategies and an …

Gene Ontology Analysis Of Pairwise Genetic Associations In Two Genome-Wide Studies Of Sporadic Als, Nora Chung Kim, Peter C. Andrews, Folkert W. Asselbergs, H Robert Frost, Scott M. Williams, Brent T. Harris, Cynthia Read, Kathleen D. Askland, Jason H. Moore

Dartmouth Scholarship

It is increasingly clear that common human diseases have a complex genetic architecture characterized by both additive and nonadditive genetic effects. The goal of the present study was to determine whether patterns of both additive and nonadditive genetic associations aggregate in specific functional groups as defined by the Gene Ontology (GO).