Digital Commons Network^™

Altered Gut Microbiota In Infants Is Associated With Respiratory Syncytial Virus Disease Severity, Jeffrey N. Harding, David Siefker, Luan Vu, Dahui You, John Devincenzo, J. F. Pierre, Stephania A. Cormier

Faculty Publications

© 2020 The Author(s). Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the number one cause of lower respiratory tract infections in infants. There are still no vaccines or specific antiviral therapies against RSV, mainly due to the inadequate understanding of RSV pathogenesis. Recent data suggest a role for gut microbiota community structure in determining RSV disease severity. Our objective was to determine the gut microbial profile associated with severe RSV patients, which could be used to help identify at-risk patients and develop therapeutically protective microbial assemblages that may stimulate immuno-protection. Results: We enrolled 95 infants from Le Bonheur during the 2014 …

A Simple Index To Quantify And Compare The Magnitude Of Intraspecific Geographic Plumage Colour Variation In Typical Antbirds (Aves: Passeriformes: Thamnophilidae), R S. Marcondes, R T. Brumfield

Faculty Publications

Intraspecific geographic phenotypic variation is a crucial theme in evolutionary biology. Comparing its magnitude across species can provide insights into its ecological and genetic correlates. Here, we developed an index, which we dub the V index, to quantify intraspecific plumage colour variation in typical antbirds (Thamnophilidae), a family which has long interested ornithologists due to a high prevalence of intraspecific variation. The V index is based on a bivariate colour space defined by brightness and redness. Its value for each species equals the mean area occupied by each of its subspecies in that colour space, divided by the area of …

Solid-State Nmr Of Plant And Fungal Cell Walls: A Critical Review, Wancheng Zhao, Liyanage D. Fernando, Alex Kirui, Fabien Deligey, Tuo Wang

Faculty Publications

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. The cell walls of plants and microbes are a central source for bio-renewable energy and the major targets of antibiotics and antifungal agents. It is highly challenging to determine the molecular structure of complex carbohydrates, protein and lignin, and their supramolecular assembly in intact cell walls. This article selectively highlights the recent breakthroughs that employ 13C/15N solid-state NMR techniques to elucidate the architecture of fungal cell walls in Aspergillus fumigatus and the primary and secondary cell walls in a large variety of plant species such as Arabidopsis, Brachypodium, maize, and spruce. Built upon these pioneering studies, …

Underwater Noise Impairs Social Communication During Aggressive And Reproductive Encounters, Julie M. Butler, Karen P. Maruska

Faculty Publications

© 2020 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Human-generated noise pollution is of global concern, as designated by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2011, Burden of disease from environmental noise: Quantification of healthy life years lost in Europe. https://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/publications/e94888/en/). Increases in shipping, sonar use, pile driving, and more have all contributed to a rise in ambient underwater sound levels. Unfortunately, continuous low-intensity sounds, like shipping noise, are pervasive in shallow-shore environments where many social species live and correspond to the frequency ranges at which many fishes produce and detect acoustic stimuli. Noise has the potential to alter the …

Identification Of Qtls For Resistance To Fusarium Head Blight Using A Doubled Haploid Population Derived From Southeastern United States Soft Red Winter Wheat Varieties Ags 2060 And Ags 2035, Alejandro Castro Aviles, Stephen Alan Harrison, Kelly Joseph Arceneaux, Gina Brown-Guidera, Richard Esten Mason, Niranjan Baisakh

Faculty Publications

Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused primarily by the fungus Fusarium graminearum, is one of the most damaging diseases of wheat, causing significant loss of yield and quality worldwide. Warm and wet conditions during flowering, a lack of resistant wheat varieties, and high inoculum pressure from corn stubble contribute to frequent FHB epidemics in the southern United States. The soft red winter wheat variety AGS 2060 is moderately susceptible (as opposed to susceptible) to FHB and regularly found in pedigrees of resistant breeding lines. AGS 2060 does not carry any known resistance genes or quantitative trait loci (QTL). A QTL mapping …

Recent Advances In Stimuli-Responsive Drug Release And Targeting Concepts Using Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles, Ghada G. Abdo, Moustafa M. Zagho, Ashraf Khalil

Faculty Publications

Being a developed and promising approach, nanotechnology has attracted a lot of attention in biomedical and pharmaceutical therapy applications. Among nanostructured materials, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are effectively used as nanocarriers for drug delivery systems. MSNs can be tailored-designed by different synthetic techniques. Their morphological characteristics dictate the type of application of such materials. Recently, polymer-based materials have been employed to functionalize the MSNs surface. These modified nanocarriers are loaded with the drug and can unload their “cargo” upon exposure to either endogenous or exogenous types of stimuli. In this study, different targeting concepts, including passive, active, vascular, nuclear, and …

Morphometric Response Of Galaxias Maculatus (Jenyns) To Lake Colonization In Chile, Margaret Mercer, Peter C. Searle, Roberto Cifuentes, Evelyn Habit, Mark C. Belk

Faculty Publications

Body and head shape in fish responds to environmental factors such as water flow rate, food sources, and niche availability. However, the way in which fish respond to these environmental factors varies. In Central Chile, multiple river and lake systems along the coast provide an ideal study site to investigate these types of shape changes. We use geometric morphometrics to characterize shape differences in Galaxias maculatus (Jenyns) between river and lake populations. Lake fish converge on a shape with a more fusiform body, narrower head, and larger eyes, while river fish have a more robust body, rounder head, and smaller …

Spatial Synchrony Is Related To Environmental Change In Finnish Moth Communities: Synchrony And Environmental Change, Tad A. Dallas, Laura H. Antão, Juha Pöyry, Reima Leinonen, Otso Ovaskainen

Faculty Publications

© 2020 The Author(s). Spatially distinct pairs of sites may have similarly fluctuating population dynamics across large geographical distances, a phenomenon called spatial synchrony. However, species rarely exist in isolation, but rather as members of interactive communities, linked with other communities through dispersal (i.e. a metacommunity). Using data on Finnish moth communities sampled across 65 sites for 20 years, we examine the complex synchronous/anti-synchronous relationships among sites using the geography of synchrony framework. We relate site-level synchrony to mean and temporal variation in climatic data, finding that colder and drier sites-and those with the most drastic temperature increases-are important for …

Development Of A Surgical Procedure For Removal Of A Placentome From A Pregnant Ewe During Gestation, Colleen A. Lambo, Ashley K. Edwards, Fuller W. Bazer, Kathrin Dunlap, M. Carey Satterfield

Faculty Publications

Background: In recent decades, there has been a growing interest in the impact of insults during pregnancy on postnatal health and disease. It is known that changes in placental development can impact fetal growth and subsequent susceptibility to adult onset diseases; however, a method to collect sufficient placental tissues for both histological and gene expression analyses during gestation without compromising the pregnancy has not been described. The ewe is an established biomedical model for the study of fetal development. Due to its cotyledonary placental type, the sheep has potential for surgical removal of materno-fetal exchange tissues, i.e., placentomes. A novel …

The Athletic Gut Microbiota, Alex E. Mohr, Ralf Jäger, Katie C. Carpenter, Chad M. Kerksick, Martin Purpura, Jeremy R. Townsend, Nicholas P. West, Katherine Black, Michael Gleeson, David B. Pyne, Shawn D. Wells, Shawn M. Arent Ph.D., Cscs*D, Fissn, Facsm, Fnak, Richard B. Kreider, Bill I. Campbell, Laurent Bannock, Jonathan Scheiman, Craig J. Wissent, Marco Pane, Douglas S. Kalman, Jamie N. Pugh, Carmen P. Ortega-Santos, Jessica A. Ter Haar, Paul J. Arciero, Jose Antonio

Faculty Publications

The microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract play a significant role in nutrient uptake, vitamin synthesis, energy harvest, inflammatory modulation, and host immune response, collectively contributing to human health. Important factors such as age, birth method, antibiotic use, and diet have been established as formative factors that shape the gut microbiota. Yet, less described is the role that exercise plays, particularly how associated factors and stressors, such as sport/exercise-specific diet, environment, and their interactions, may influence the gut microbiota. In particular, high-level athletes offer remarkable physiology and metabolism (including muscular strength/power, aerobic capacity, energy expenditure, and heat production) compared to sedentary …

Cardiac Fibrosis And Cardiac Fibroblast Lineage-Tracing: Recent Advances, Xing Fu, Qianglin Liu, Chaoyang Li, Yuxia Li, Leshan Wang

Faculty Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Fu, Liu, Li, Li and Wang. Cardiac fibrosis is a common pathological change associated with cardiac injuries and diseases. Even though the accumulation of collagens and other extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins may have some protective effects in certain situations, prolonged fibrosis usually negatively affects cardiac function and often leads to deleterious consequences. While the development of cardiac fibrosis involves several cell types, the major source of ECM proteins is cardiac fibroblast. The high plasticity of cardiac fibroblasts enables them to quickly change their behaviors in response to injury and transition between several differentiation states. However, the …

Disturbance Legacies Increase And Synchronize Nutrient Concentrations And Bacterial Productivity In Coastal Ecosystems, John S. Kominoski, Evelyn E. Gaiser, Edward Castañeda-Moya, Stephen E. Davis, Shimelis B. Dessu, Paul Julian, Dong Yoon Lee, Luca Marazzi, Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Andres Sola, Ulrich Stingl, Sandro Stumpf, Donatto Surratt, Rafael Travieso, Tiffany G. Troxler

Faculty Publications

Long-term ecological research can resolve effects of disturbance on ecosystem dynamics by capturing the scale of disturbance and interactions with environmental changes. To quantify how disturbances interact with long-term directional changes (sea-level rise, freshwater restoration), we studied 17 yr of monthly dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total nitrogen (TN), and phosphorus (TP) concentrations and bacterioplankton productivity across freshwater-to-marine estuary gradients exposed to multiple disturbance events (e.g., droughts, fire, hurricanes, and low-temperature anomalies) and long-term increases in water levels. By studying two neighboring drainages that differ in hydrologic connectivity, we additionally tested how disturbance legacies are shaped by hydrologic connectivity. We predicted …

Long-Term Trajectory Of Nitrogen Loading And Delivery From Mississippi River Basin To The Gulf Of Mexico, Hanqin Tian, Rongting Xu, Shufen Pan, Yuanzhi Yao, Zihao Bian, Wei Jun Cai, Charles S. Hopkinson, Dubravko Justic, Steven Lohrenz, Chaoqun Lu, Wei Ren, Jia Yang

Faculty Publications

The large areal extent of hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico has been partially attributed to substantial nitrogen (N) loading from the Mississippi River basin, which is driven by multiple natural and human factors. The available water quality monitoring data and most of the current models are insufficient to fully quantify N load magnitude and the underlying controls. Here we use a process-based Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model to examine how multiple factors (synthetic N fertilizer, atmospheric N deposition, land use changes, climate variability, and increasing atmospheric CO2) have affected the loading and delivery of total nitrogen (TN) consisting of …

Bionoinet: Ligand-Binding Site Classification With Off-The-Shelf Deep Neural Network, Wentao Shi, Jeffrey M. Lemoine, Abd El Monsif A. Shawky, Manali Singha, Limeng Pu, Shuangyan Yang, J. Ramanujam, Michal Brylinski

Faculty Publications

© The 2020 Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Motivation: Fast and accurate classification of ligand-binding sites in proteins with respect to the class of binding molecules is invaluable not only to the automatic functional annotation of large datasets of protein structures but also to projects in protein evolution, protein engineering and drug development. Deep learning techniques, which have already been successfully applied to address challenging problems across various fields, are inherently suitable to classify ligand-binding pockets. Our goal is to demonstrate that off-the-shelf deep learning models can be employed with minimum development effort to recognize nucleotide-and …

The Origins And Future Of Global Health Law: Regulation, Security, And Pluralism, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a global health crisis unlike any seen in the seventy-five years since the United Nations and the World Health Organization were formed - one that is killing people, spreading human suffering, and upending people's lives. But this is much more than a health crisis. It is a human crisis. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is attacking societies at their core. It is therefore a crucial point around which to focus the capability of national and global institutions to address this essential threat to human health and life.

The purposes of this Article are to revisit and …

Population Epigenetic Divergence Exceeds Genetic Divergence In The Eastern Oyster Crassostrea Virginica In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Kevin M. Johnson, Morgan W. Kelly

Faculty Publications

© 2019 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Populations may respond to environmental heterogeneity via evolutionary divergence or phenotypic plasticity. While evolutionary divergence occurs through DNA sequence differences among populations, plastic divergence among populations may be generated by changes in the epigenome. Here, we present the results of a genome-wide comparison of DNA methylation patterns and genetic structure among four populations of Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) in the northern Gulf of Mexico. We used a combination of restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RADseq) and reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) to explore population structure, gene-wide averages of …

Cave-Adapted Evolution In The North American Amblyopsid Fishes Inferred Using Phylogenomics And Geometric Morphometrics, Pamela B. Hart, Matthew L. Niemiller, Edward D. Burress, Jonathan W. Armbruster, William B. Ludt, Prosanta Chakrabarty

Faculty Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Evolution © 2020 The Society for the Study of Evolution. Cave adaptation has evolved repeatedly across the Tree of Life, famously leading to pigmentation and eye degeneration and loss, yet its macroevolutionary implications remain poorly understood. We use the North American amblyopsid fishes, a family spanning a wide degree of cave adaptation, to examine the impact of cave specialization on the modes and tempo of evolution. We reconstruct evolutionary relationships using ultraconserved element loci, estimate the ancestral histories of eye-state, and examine the impact of cave adaptation on body shape evolution. Our phylogenomic analyses provide a …

Direct Measurement Of Sweetpotato Surface Area And Volume Using A Low-Cost 3d Scanner For Identification Of Shape Features Related To Processing Product Recovery, Arthur Villordon, Jeffrey C. Gregorie, Don Labonte

Faculty Publications

The growing demand for sweetpotato French fry and other processed products has increased the need for producing storage roots of desired shape profile (i.e., blocky and less tapered). Length-width ratio (LW) is the current de facto standard for characterizing sweetpotato shape. AlthoughLWis sensitive and descriptive of some types of shape variability, this index may be inadequate to measure taper and other subtle shape variations. Prior work has shown that surface area (SA) and volume (VOL) are important shape descriptors but current direct measurement methods are tedious, inconsistent, and often destructive. A low-cost three-dimensional (3D) scanner was used to acquire digital …

Conserved And Variable Responses Of The Gut Microbiome To Resistant Starch Type 2, Zachary A. Bendiks, Knud E.B. Knudsen, Michael J. Keenan, Maria L. Marco

Faculty Publications

Resistant starch type 2 (RS2), a dietary fiber comprised solely of glucose, has been extensively studied in clinical trials and animal models for its capacity to improve metabolic and systemic health. Because the health modulatory effects of RS2 and other dietary fibers are thought to occur through modification of the gut microbiome, those studies frequently include assessments of RS2-mediated changes to intestinal microbial composition and function. In this review, we identify the conserved responses of the gut microbiome among 13 human and 35 animal RS2 intervention studies. Consistent outcomes of RS2 interventions include reductions in bacterial α-diversity; increased production of …

Revised Lewis Bending Stress Capacity Model, Edward E. Osakue

Faculty Publications

Background: During operation, cylindrical gearset experiences tangential, radial, and axial (helical gears only) force components that induce bending, compressive, and shear stresses at the root area of the gear tooth. Accurate estimation of the effective bending stress at the gear root is a challenge. Lewis was the first person who attempted estimating the root bending stress of spur gears with some reasonable accuracy. Various gear standards and codes in use today are modifications and improvements of the Lewis model.

Objective: This research aims at revising the Lewis model by making adjustments for dynamic loads, shear stresses, axial bending stress for …

The Agroecosystem Project At The Organic Dairy Research Farm, University Of New Hampshire, John D. Aber, Matthew M. Smith, Allison M. Leach, William H. Mcdowell, Michelle Daley Shattuck, Nicole A. Williamson, Dena M. Hoffman, J. Matthew Davis

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Too Soon Forgot: The Ethics Of Remembering In Richard Iii, Now, And House Of Cards, L Monique Pittman

Faculty Publications

Three interconnected performances of Shakespeare's Richard III display the extreme hermeneutical volatility of representation when remediated through a celebrity's personal history. The film NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage (dir. Jeremy Whelehan, 2014) documents the Bridge Project Company's Richard III directed by Sam Mendes and starring Kevin Spacey (2011-12), a production launched at London's Old Vic and transferred to twelve cities across the globe. Just prior to the distribution of NOW, Netflix released its first season of House of Cards (2013) with Spacey as the politician, Francis Underwood, at the center of its seamy landscape. Spacey insists …

Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha Signaling May Contribute To Chronic West Nile Virus Post-Infectious Proinflammatory State, A. Arturo Leis, Marie F. Grill, Brent P. Goodman, Syed B. Sadiq, David J. Sinclair, Parminder J.S. Vig, Fengwei Bai

Faculty Publications

Background: West Nile virus (WNV) causes a spectrum of human disease ranging from a febrile illness (WNV fever) to severe neuroinvasive disease (meningitis, encephalitis, acute flaccid paralysis). Since WNV gained entry into North America in 1999, clinicians caring for WNV survivors have observed persistent neurological symptoms occurring long-after the production of neutralizing antibodies and clearance of the virus. Accordingly, alternative pathogeneses other than direct viral invasion have been hypothesized to explain these post-infectious symptoms. The dominant hypothesis is that antiviral inflammatory responses triggered initially to clear WNV may persist to promote a post-infectious proinflammatory state.

Methods: In 4 serologically-confirmed …

Development And Characterization Of Genomic Resources For A Non-Model Marine Telost, The Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus, Lutjanidae): Construction Of A High-Density Linkage Map, Anchoring Of Genome Contigs And Comparative Genomic Analysis, Adrienne E. Norrell, Kenneth L. Jones, Eric A. Saillant

Faculty Publications

The red snapper Lutjanus campechanus is an exploited reef fish of major economic importance in the Gulf of Mexico region. Studies of genome wide genetic variation are needed to understand the structure of wild populations and develop breeding programs for aquaculture but interpretation of these genome scans is limited by the absence of reference genome. In this work, the first draft of a reference genome was developed and characterized for the red snapper. P-454 and Illumina sequencing were conducted to produce paired-end reads that were assembled into reference contigs and scaffolds. The current assembly spans over 770 Mb, representing an …

Escherichia Coli Antimicrobial Resistance Variability In Water Runoff And Soil From A Remnant Native Prairie, And Improved Pasture, And A Cultivated Agricultural Watershed, Maitreyee Mukherjee, Terry Gentry, Heidi Mjelde, John P. Brooks, Daren Harmel, Lucas Gregory, Kevin Wagner

Faculty Publications

Although many previous studies have examined patterns of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and multidrug resistance (MDR) from domestic animals and farm environments, comparatively little is known about the environmental sources and natural reservoirs of AMR and MDR. In this study, we collected stormwater runoff and soil samples from three watersheds in Texas. Escherichia coli (E. coli) were enumerated, isolated, and analyzed for resistance patterns. E. coli from all sites, irrespective of land use, displayed the presence of AMR/MDR. Higher levels of AMR/MDR were observed in water compared to soil. More isolates were resistant to cephalothin than other antibiotics. 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 …

Nocturnal Copulation In Glaucous-Winged Gulls Larus Glaucescens, Floyd E. Hayes, James L. Hayward

Faculty Publications

Gulls (Laridae) are primarily diurnal, although many species forage opportunistically at night, and several species copulate at night. We used trail cameras to study time-of-day variation in the rate of copulation by Glaucous-winged Gulls Larus glaucescens in a breeding colony (1500+ pairs) at Protection Island, Washington, USA, from 31 May to 07 June 2018. Copulations (n = 353) occurred at a significantly higher rate during the day (0.82/camera-h) than at night (0.51/camera-h), with 76.3 % of copulations during the day and 23.7 % at night (daylight comprised 66.1 % and darkness comprised 33.9 % of the study period). The …

Indolic Glucosinolate Pathway Provides Resistance To Mycorrhizal Fungal Colonization In A Non-Host Brassicaceae, Mark A. Anthony, J. L. Celenza, A. Armstrong, Serita D. Frey

Faculty Publications

Most terrestrial plants form mycorrhizas, but a number of agricultural plants, including the Brassicaceae, are non-mycorrhizal. Brassicaceae can still be colonized by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), but species like Arabidopsis thaliana experience growth reductions following AMF colonization at similar magnitude to that of fungal pathogen infections and lack key genes necessary for nutrient exchange. Arabidopsis also produces specific secondary compounds via the modification of tryptophan, including indolic glucosinolates (IGs), which have anti-fungal properties and may therefore be involved in reducing AMF colonization. This study therefore addressed whether the ability to produce IGs facilitates resistance to AMF colonization and growth suppression. …

Combined Opportunistic And Equilibrium Life-History Traits Facilitate Successful Invasions Of The Shimofuri Goby (Tridentiger Bifasciatus), Jiao Qin, Miao Xiang, Meixiang Jia, Fei Cheng, Bjorn V. Schmidt, Jian Liu, Songguang Xie

Faculty Publications

The life-history traits of a non-native population of Shimofuri goby (Tridentiger bifasciatus) were investigated in Nansi Lake, which is a storage lake on the East Route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, China. The results were analyzed in combination with data from other non-native populations of this species to reveal the life-history traits that caused its successful invasions. Mature gonads in April and May suggest that the species spawns in this period, and cohort tracking and age analysis revealed that individuals had a one-year lifespan. The relative fecundity was 2,825 ± 614 eggs/g. A short lifespan and high fecundity are …

Spatial Distribution Of Lycorma Delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) Egg Masses On Tree-Of-Heaven, Black Walnut, And Siberian Elm In North America, Houping Liu, Richard J. Hartlieb, Timothy Schowalter

Faculty Publications

The spatial distribution of Lycorma delicatula (White) egg masses on three species of trees were studied in Pennsylvania. Five tree-of-heaven, five black walnut, and one Siberian elm trees were felled in early spring 2019 to sample for egg masses. Each egg mass was marked for its cardinal direction, position in the tree, height above ground, and spread from the bole. A total of 214 egg masses were found on tree-of-heaven and black walnut, with 38.3, 29.4, 22.0, and 10.3% on the north, west, south, and east quadrant, respectively. No significant difference in cardinal direction was found for either species. Equal …