Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Calorie Restriction On Energy Metabolism In Humans, Jasper Most, Leanne Maree Redman

Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Calorie restriction (CR) is the most potent, non-pharmacological intervention to support metabolic health. The effects of calorie restriction exceed weight loss. Consistent throughout many studies, calorie restriction induces a reduction in energy expenditure that is larger than the loss of metabolic mass, i.e. fat-free mass and fat mass, can explain. Per prevailing theories of mammalian aging, this disproportionate reduction in metabolic rate, defined as metabolic adaptation, reduces oxidative damage and thereby delays age-associated declines in physiological function. The aim of this narrative review is to investigate the origins of CR-induced metabolic adaptation. From a physiological standpoint this likely relates to …

An Improved 7k Snp Array, The C7air, Provides A Wealth Of Validated Snp Markers For Rice Breeding And Genetics Studies, Karina Y. Morales, Namrata Singh, Francisco Agosto Perez, John Carlos Ignacio, Ranjita Thapa, Juan D. Arbelaez, Rodante E. Tabien, Adam Famoso, Diane R. Wang, Endang M. Septiningsih, Yuxin Shi, Tobias Kretzschmar, Susan R. Mccouch, Michael J. Thomson

Faculty Publications

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are highly abundant, amendable to high-throughput genotyping, and useful for a number of breeding and genetics applications in crops. SNP frequencies vary depending on the species and populations under study, and therefore target SNPs need to be carefully selected to be informative for each application. While multiple SNP genotyping systems are available for rice (Oryza sativa L. and its relatives), they vary in their informativeness, cost, marker density, speed, flexibility, and data quality. In this study, we report the development and performance of the Cornell-IR LD Rice Array (C7AIR), a second-generation SNP array containing 7,098 markers …

Magnetic Field–Driven Assembly And Reconfiguration Of Multicomponent Supraparticles, A. Al Harraq, J. G. Lee, B. Bharti

Faculty Publications

Suprastructures at the colloidal scale must be assembled with precise control over local interactions to accurately mimic biological complexes. The toughest design requirements include breaking the symmetry of assembly in a simple and reversible fashion to unlock functions and properties so far limited to living matter. We demonstrate a simple experimental technique to program magnetic field–induced interactions between metallodielectric patchy particles and isotropic, nonmagnetic “satellite” particles. By controlling the connectivity, composition, and distribution of building blocks, we show the assembly of three-dimensional, multicomponent supraparticles that can dynamically reconfigure in response to change in external field strength. The local arrangement of …

The Effects Of Watermelon Juice Supplementation On Tissue Oxygen Saturation During Hyperglycemia, Sarah Elizabeth Kemp

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Nucleic Acid Binding Activity Of Human Mitochondrial Matrix Protein Miner2, Munira Khaled

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Host Induced Gene Silencing Targeting Aspergillus Flavus Aflm Reduced Aflatoxin Contamination In Transgenic Maize Under Field Conditions, Yenjit Raruang, Olanike Omolehin, Dongfang Hu, Qijian Wei, Zhu Qiang Han, Kanniah Rajasekaran, Jeffrey W. Cary, Kan Wang, Zhi Yuan Chen

Faculty Publications

Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the major crops susceptible to Aspergillus flavus infection and subsequent contamination with aflatoxins, the most potent naturally produced carcinogenic secondary metabolites. This pathogen can pose serious health concerns and cause severe economic losses due to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations on permissible levels of aflatoxins in food and feed. Although biocontrol has yielded some successes in managing aflatoxin contamination, enhancing crop resistance is still the preferred choice of management for long-term sustainability. Hence, host induced gene silencing (HIGS) strategy was explored in this study. The A. flavus gene aflM encoding versicolorin …

Ultrastructural Analysis Of Cells From Bell Pepper (Capsicum Annuum) Infected With Bell Pepper Endornavirus, Katarzyna Otulak-Kozieł, Edmund Kozieł, Cesar Escalante, Rodrigo A. Valverde

Faculty Publications

Endornaviruses include viruses that infect fungi, oomycetes, and plants. The genome of plant endornaviruses consists of linear ssRNA ranging in size from approximately 13-18 kb and lacking capsid protein and cell-to-cell movement capability. Although, plant endornaviruses have not been shown to cause detectable changes in the plant phenotype, they have been associated with alterations of the host physiology. Except for the association of cytoplasmic vesicles with infections by Vicia faba endornavirus, effects on the plant cell ultrastructure caused by endornaviruses have not been reported. Bell pepper endornavirus (BPEV) has been identified in several pepper (Capsicum spp.) species. We conducted ultrastructural …

Characterizing The Epidemiology Of Bluetongue And Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease Virus In Louisiana, Michael Edward Becker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Bluetongue virus (BTV) and Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease Virus (EHDV) are arthropod-borne viruses (Reoviridae; Orbivirus) transmitted by biting midges in the genus Culicoides. These viruses cause hemorrhagic disease and induce serious morbidity and mortality rates in wild and captive deer. Cattle are normally asymptomatic but serve as the reservoir/amplifying host for these viruses and play an important role in the transmission cycle. The objectives of this study were to characterize the epidemiology of these viruses as they relate to white-tailed deer and cattle, evaluate different trap types for collecting Culicoides midges, and determine if these viruses can be detected …

Development And Validation Of An Early Pregnancy Risk Score For The Prediction Of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus In Chinese Pregnant Women, Si Gao, Junhong Leng, Hongyan Liu, Shuo Wang, Weiqin Li, Yue Wang, Gang Hu, Juliana C.N. Chan, Zhijie Yu, Hong Zhu, Xilin Yang

Population and Public Health Science Faculty Publications

To develop and validate a set of risk scores for the prediction of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) before the 15th gestational week using an established population-based prospective cohort. Methods From October 2010 to August 2012, 19 331 eligible pregnant women were registered in the three-tiered antenatal care network in Tianjin, China, to receive their antenatal care and a two-step GDM screening. The whole dataset was randomly divided into a training dataset (for development of the risk score) and a test dataset (for validation of performance of the risk score). Logistic regression was performed to obtain coefficients of selected predictors for …

Convergent Evolution Of Olfactory And Thermoregulatory Capacities In Small Amphibious Mammals, Quentin Martinez, Julien Clavel, Jacob A. Esselstyn, Anang S. Achmadi, Camille Grohé, Nelly Pirot, Pierre Henri Fabre

Faculty Publications

Olfaction and thermoregulation are key functions for mammals. The former is critical to feeding, mating, and predator avoidance behaviors, while the latter is essential for homeothermy. Aquatic and amphibious mammals face olfactory and thermoregulatory challenges not generally encountered by terrestrial species. In mammals, the nasal cavity houses a bony system supporting soft tissues and sensory organs implicated in either olfactory or thermoregulatory functions. It is hypothesized that to cope with aquatic environments, amphibious mammals have expanded their thermoregulatory capacity at the expense of their olfactory system. We investigated the evolutionary history of this potential trade-off using a comparative dataset of …

Genetic Dissection Of Heat-Responsive Physiological Traits To Improve Adaptation And Increase Yield Potential In Soft Winter Wheat, Sumit Pradhan, Md Ali Babar, Guihua Bai, Jahangir Khan, Dipendra Shahi, Muhsin Avci, Jia Guo, Jordan Mcbreen, Senthold Asseng, Salvador Gezan, Byung Kee Baik, Ann Blount, Stephen Harrison, Suraj Sapkota, Paul St. Amand, Sanju Kunwar

Faculty Publications

Background: Climate change, including higher temperatures (HT) has a detrimental impact on wheat productivity and modeling studies predict more frequent heat waves in the future. Wheat growth can be impaired by high daytime and nighttime temperature at any developmental stage, especially during the grain filling stage. Leaf chlorophyll content, leaf greenness, cell membrane thermostability, and canopy temperature have been proposed as candidate traits to improve crop adaptation and yield potential of wheat under HT. Nonetheless, a significant gap exists in knowledge of genetic backgrounds associated with these physiological traits. Identifying genetic loci associated with these traits can facilitate physiological breeding …

Emerging Roles For The Nucleolus 2019, Susan J. Baserga, Patrick J. Dimario, Francesca E. Duncan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Assembly Of The Photosystem Ii Reaction Center, Annaliesa Renee Fanguy

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Energetics Of Interfacial Interactions Of Hydrocarbon Fluids With Kerogen And Calcite Using Molecular Modeling, Zelong Zhang, Haoran Liu, Jianwei Wang

Faculty Publications

© 2020 American Chemical Society. Understanding of the fluid-rock interactions is essential to characterize the behavior of petroleum fluids in reservoir formations. Such knowledge is difficult to obtain due to the heterogeneous nature of hydrocarbon systems. This study investigated the interactions of light oil molecules with kerogen and calcite using molecular dynamics simulations. Specifically, octane and octanthiol were used as model molecules for non-polar and polar oil compounds; a kerogen fragment molecule was employed as the building block for kerogen, the major constituent of reservoir rock organics; calcite was used as a model system for hydrophilic materials in reservoir rocks. …

Dna Methylation Analysis Of Ecr3 Of Oxytocin Receptor Gene, Amanda Husein

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Moche Juvenile Burial Patterns, Audrey J. Deluca

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines Moche juvenile burial patterns as documented in the published literature. Reports of cemeteries and other burial excavations were compiled in order to identify the position of children in Moche society as well as ideology surrounding children and childhood. The data collected spans six valleys and fourteen archaeological sites along the north coast of Peru. This investigation revealed 191 juvenile burials dating from A.D. 200 – 850. The variables documented for each burial include site, period, age, sex, burial position, orientation, burial encasing, and description of grave goods, as well as documenting adult individuals buried with juveniles. This …

The Effects Watermelon Juice On Post Prandial Vascular Endothelial Function And Blood Flow During Hyperglycemia, Cullen M. Vincellette

LSU Master's Theses

Impaired endothelial function and microvascular dysfunction are frequently observed in individuals with cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. Reduced nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability is considered to be central to the development of these risk factors. NO can be generated via enzymatic reaction via NO synthase which requires the amino acid arginine. Evidence suggests that the amino acid citrulline is more effective at increasing circulating arginine levels than arginine supplementation alone. The purpose of this pilot study is to determine the potential for citrulline-rich watermelon juice (WMJ) to attenuate the reduction in postprandial endothelial function …

Water Lily (Nymphaea Thermarum) Genome Reveals Variable Genomic Signatures Of Ancient Vascular Cambium Losses, Rebecca A. Povilus, Jeffrey M. Dacosta, Christopher Grassa, Prasad R.V. Satyaki, Morgan Moeglein, Johan Jaenisch, Zhenxiang Xi, Sarah Mathews, Mary Gehring, Charles C. Davis, William E. Friedman

Faculty Publications

© 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. For more than 225 million y, all seed plants were woody trees, shrubs, or vines. Shortly after the origin of angiosperms ∼140 million y ago (MYA), the Nymphaeales (water lilies) became one of the first lineages to deviate from their ancestral, woody habit by losing the vascular cambium, the meristematic population of cells that produces secondary xylem (wood) and phloem. Many of the genes and gene families that regulate differentiation of secondary tissues also regulate the differentiation of primary xylem and phloem, which are produced by apical meristems and retained in …

Virtual Touch: Embodied Experiences Of (Dis)Embodied Intimacy In Mediatized Performance, Naomi Petrea Bennett

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore a phenomenon I call virtual touch, in which embodied sensations of touch are felt through non-tactile senses. In the digital age, online interactivity has expanded the ways in which individuals experience connection, intimacy, and touch. Digital media, which have traditionally been thought of as disembodied, nevertheless have the ability to elicit intense feelings of touch. Through analysis of digital and virtual installation art, I examine the ways that non-tactile touch remains rooted in the embodied experience. The works I include in this study create a feeling of virtual touch through a co-functioning of the …

Feeding Ecology Of Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) And Vermilion Snapper (Rhomboplites Aurorubens) Coexisting At The Louisiana Shelf-Edge Banks, Katherine M. Ellis

LSU Master's Theses

Niche partitioning, the process by which competing species use different subsets of the available resources, is commonly used to explain the coexistence of closely related species. In the northwest Gulf of Mexico on the shelf-edge banks, red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) and vermilion snapper (Rhomboplites aurorubens) are two coexisting closely related species. Yet, little is known about how these species partition resources. In this study, niche partitioning of red snapper and vermilion snapper was investigated using gut contents and stable isotopes. While dietary niche partitioning was apparent, the species relied upon similar prey and displayed isotopic niche overlap, …

Physical And Biological Factors Controlling The Fate Of Nitrate In A Louisiana Coastal Deltaic Floodplain, Alexandra Christensen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Mississippi River Delta is threatened by a growing pressure to support large human populations in the United States both with food production, navigation systems, and urban development in the Mississippi River Basin. Nitrate-nitrogen load in the Mississippi River, up to 100 Tg N yr^-1 from agricultural and urban runoff, leads to phytoplankton blooms and hypoxia across the Louisiana continental shelf, creating dead zones of low dissolved oxygen threatening a significant commercial fishery. Along the coast and river corridors, floodplain ecosystems have the capacity to retain and remove nitrate. This dissertation explores the role of productive, actively growing coastal …

Gomcl: A T Gomcl: A Toolkit T Oolkit To Cluster O Cluster, Evaluate, And Extr Aluate, And Extract Non-R Act Non-Redundant Edundant Associations Of Gene Ontology-Based Functions, Guannan Wang, Dong-Ha Oh, Maheshi Dassanayake

Faculty Publications

Background Functional enrichment of genes and pathways based on Gene Ontology (GO) has been widely used to describe the results of various -omics analyses. GO terms statistically overrepresented within a set of a large number of genes are typically used to describe the main functional attributes of the gene set. However, these lists of overrepresented GO terms are often too large and contains redundant overlapping GO terms hindering informative functional interpretations. Results We developed GOMCL to reduce redundancy and summarize lists of GO terms effectively and informatively. This lightweight python toolkit efficiently identifies clusters within a list of GO terms …

Simulating Southern Rust Damage In Corn Through Defoliation, Michael Keith Shannon

LSU Master's Theses

The importance of leaf area to corn for grain production beginning at silking is well documented. However, being able to predict yield loss due to defoliators such as foliar plant diseases and insects that progressively increase in defoliation over time has been difficult to quantify. To address this issue, a leaf removal study was conducted at the Dean Lee Research and Extension Center located near Alexandria, Louisiana in 2017 and 2018. Two hybrids, differing in relative maturity were evaluated in this study. An early maturing hybrid (108 days in 2017 and 107 days in 2018) and a later maturing hybrid …

Phytosampling Of Ambient Air Particulate Matter (Pm) -New Method Of Pm-Associated Pollution Characterization, Chuqi Guo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Ambient air particulate matter (PM) has been documented to be a contributor to a lot of pollution-related health effects. Due to the common anthropogenic origin, PM could be an effective vehicle to carry and deliver many toxic materials, including environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into the human body, thus significantly raise the health risk of PM exposure. Studies of ambient air PM potentially bear artifacts stemming from the collection methods. We investigated the effects of collection methods on the ambient air PM composition and developed a static collection method relying on the particle entrapment by …

An Ecopath With Ecosim Analysis On Offshore Petroleum Platform Influences On Gulf Of Mexico Red Snapper, Valentin Gomez

LSU Master's Theses

Offshore oil and gas platforms have had a significant presence in the Gulf of Mexico since the 1950s. An important secondary function of these structures is that they provide artificial habitat to fisheries, most notably Red snapper. Policy changes intended to reduce the risk associated with aging infrastructure have reduced the number of standing platforms from 4044 to 1867 from 2001 to 2018. The effect this loss of habitat has on Red snapper was tested by creating three scenarios of platform changes and modeling the perturbation from 2005 to 2050. The simulation was accomplished using the ecological model Ecopath with …

The Relationship Between The Development Of Communicative Functions In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Isabelle Bankston

LSU Master's Theses

In regard to the assessment of language, it is difficult to determine exact communicative functions that are exhibited early in development that could indicate a prognostic value of verbal abilities and outcomes of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The Verbal Behavioral Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP, Sundberg, 2008) is frequently used in Applied Behavior Analysis for standard assessment procedures to measure development over time. The current study was designed to use the VB-MAPP to determine a relationship between certain communicative functions (i.e., mand, tact, listener responding, echoic, and intraverbal) that may suggest a correlation in growth in each …

Estimation Of Age From The Auricular Surface Of The Ilium Through The Utilization Of 3d Scanning And Gis, Krista Bennett

LSU Master's Theses

The ability to produce age estimations for adult skeletons has been a focus of forensic anthropologists for decades. Most age estimation methods for adult remains provide age ranges that are too narrow, too broad, or too vague. This project sought to combine 3D scans with GIS to produce morphological maps of the auricular surface of the os coxa in order to identify quantifiable characteristics for age assessment that could be used for generating narrower age range estimates for older adult remains.

A NextEngine ™ HD Desktop 3D scanner was used to scan the auricular surfaces of 384 os coxae from …

The Effects Of Skeletal Muscle Specific Cpt1b Knock Out On Genetically Obese Ay Mice, Allison Stone

LSU Master's Theses

Fatty acid oxidation inhibition is one approach to reducing blood glucose levels in type II diabetes. Skeletal muscle specific Carnitine Palmitoyltransferase 1b knockout mice (Cpt1b^m-/-) cannot transport long-chain fatty acids into the mitochondria to be oxidized in order to produce energy. Cpt1b^m-/- mice have debilitated fat oxidation, less fat mass and improved glucose utilization compared to control C57BL/6 mice fed a 25% fat diet.

We hypothesized that CPT1b inhibition could reduce fat mass and lower blood glucose levels in a genetic mouse model of obesity and diabetes. To test this, we bred Cpt1b^m-/- mice to A …

Modeling The Dynamics Of Phospholipids In The Fluid Phase Of Liposomes, Sudipta Gupta, Gerald J. Schneider

Faculty Publications

This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry. We present the derivation of a new model to describe neutron spin echo spectroscopy and quasi-elastic neutron scattering data on liposomes. We compare the new model with existing approaches and benchmark it with experimental data. The analysis indicates the importance of including all major contributions in the modeling of the intermediate scattering function. Simultaneous analysis of the experimental data on lipids with full contrast and tail contrast matched samples reveals highly confined lipid tail motion. A comparison of their dynamics demonstrates the statistical independence of tail-motion and height-height correlation of the …

Characterization Of Drosophila Boundary Element Associated Factor Beaf-32b Interactions With Transcription Factors And Chromatin Remodeling Complexes., Yuankai Dong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

BEAF (Boundary Element-Associated Factor) was originally identified as a chromatin domain insulator binding protein, suggesting that it might play a role in linking gene regulation to chromatin organization and dynamics. Genome-wide mapping found that BEAF is usually found near transcription start sites, often of housekeeping genes, suggesting that it might play a role in promoter function. This would be a nontraditional role for an insulator binding protein. To gain insight into molecular mechanisms of BEAF function, we identified proteins that interact with BEAF using yeast 2-hybrid assays. Here we focus on three identified transcription factors: Bcd, Scr and Sry-δ. Interactions …