Digital Commons Network^™

Effect Of A Once In 100-Year Flood On A Subtropical Coastal Phytoplankton Community, Lesley A. Clementson, Anthony J. Richardson, Wayne A. Rochester, Kadija Oubelkheir, Bingqing Liu, Eurico J. D'Sa, Luiz Felipe Mendes Gusmão, Penelope Ajani, Thomas Schroeder, Phillip W. Ford, Michele A. Burford, Emily Saeck, Andrew D. L. Steven

Faculty Publications

Subtropical systems experience occasional severe floods, dramatically altering the phytoplankton community structure, in response to changes in salinity, nutrients, and light. This study examined the effects of a 1:100 year summer flood on the phytoplankton community in an Australian subtropical bay – Moreton Bay – over 48 weeks, from January to December 2011. Immediately after maximum flood levels were reached on the rivers flowing into the bay, the lowest salinity, and highest turbidity values, in more than a decade, were measured in the Bay and the areal extent of the flood-related parameters was also far greater than previous flood events. …

The Epigenetics Of Gametes And Early Embryos And Potential Long-Range Consequences In Livestock Species—Filling In The Picture With Epigenomic Analyses, Linkai Zhu, Sadie L. Marjani, Zongliang Jiang

Faculty Publications

The epigenome is dynamic and forged by epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin remodeling, and non-coding RNA species. Increasing lines of evidence support the concept that certain acquired traits are derived from environmental exposure during early embryonic and fetal development, i.e., fetal programming, and can even be “memorized” in the germline as epigenetic information and transmitted to future generations. Advances in technology are now driving the global profiling and precise editing of germline and embryonic epigenomes, thereby improving our understanding of epigenetic regulation and inheritance. These achievements open new avenues for the development of technologies or potential …

Discovery Of Clioquinol And Analogues As Novel Inhibitors Of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection, Ace2 And Ace2 - Spike Protein Interaction In Vitro, Omonike A. Olaleye, Manvir Kaur, Collins Onyenaka, Tolulope Adebusuyi

Faculty Publications

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological agent for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has resulted in an ongoing pandemic. Presently, there are no clinically approved drugs for COVID-19. Hence, there is an urgent need to accelerate the development of effective antivirals. Herein, we discovered Clioquinol (5-chloro-7-iodo-8-quinolinol (CLQ)), a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug, and two of its analogues (7-bromo-5-chloro-8-hydroxyquinoline (CLBQ14); and 5, 7-Dichloro-8-hydroxyquinoline (CLCQ)) as potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 infection-induced cytopathic effect in vitro. In addition, all three compounds showed potent anti-exopeptidase activity against recombinant human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (rhACE2) and inhibited the binding of rhACE2 …

Immune Checkpoint-Related Serum Proteins And Genetic Variants Predict Outcomes Of Localized Prostate Cancer, A Cohort Study, Qinchuan Wang, Yuanqing Ye, Hao Yu, Shu Hong Lin, Huakang Tu, Dong Liang, David W. Chang, Maosheng Huang, Xifeng Wu

Faculty Publications

Background: The clinical predictors and biological mechanisms for localized prostate cancer (PCa) outcomes remain mostly unknown. We aim to evaluate the role of serum immune-checkpoint-related (ICK) proteins and genetic variations in predicting outcomes of localized PCa. Methods: We profiled the serum levels of 14 ICK-related proteins (BTLA, GITR, HVEM, IDO, LAG-3, PD-1, PD-L1, PD-L2, Tim-3, CD28, CD80, 4-1BB, CD27, and CTLA-4) in 190 patients with localized PCa. The genotypes of 97 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 19 ICK-related genes were analyzed in an extended population (N = 1762). Meta-data from ArrayExpress and TCGA was employed to validate and to probe …

The Interrelationship Between Water Access, Exclusive Breastfeeding And Diarrhea In Children: A Cross-Sectional Assessment Across 19 African Countries, Paschal A. Apanga, Ann M. Weber, Lyndsey A. Darrow, Mark S. Riddle, Wei-Chen Tung, Yan Liu, Joshua V. Garn

Faculty Publications

Background Access to an improved water supply and practicing exclusive breastfeeding are essential for improving maternal and child health outcomes. However, few studies have been equipped to assess the interdependencies between access to improved water, practicing exclusive breastfeeding, and child health. The primary aim of our study was to assess whether access to an improved water supply and water-fetching were associated with mothers’ practice of exclusive breastfeeding.

Methods We analyzed data on 247090 mothers with children 5 months old or less using Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys from 19 African countries. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the relationship between …

A Review Of 50 Years Of Study Of Hydrology, Wetland Dynamics, Aquatic Metabolism, Water Quality And Trophic Status, And Nutrient Biogeochemistry In The Barataria Basin, Mississippi Delta-System Functioning, Human Impacts And Restoration Approaches, John W. Day, William H. Conner, Ronald D. Delaune, Charles S. Hopkinson, Rachael G. Hunter, Gary P. Shaffer, Demetra Kandalepas, Richard F. Keim, G. Paul Kemp, Robert R. Lane, Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Charles E. Sasser, John R. White, Ivan A. Vargas-Lopez

Faculty Publications

Here we review an extensive series of studies of Barataria Basin, an economically and ecologically important coastal basin of the Mississippi Delta. Human activity has greatly altered the hydrology of the basin by decreasing riverine inflows from leveeing of the river and its distributaries, increasing runoff with high nutrient concentrations from agricultural fields, and channelization of wetlands of the basin interior that has altered flow paths to often bypass wetlands. This has resulted in degraded water quality in the upper basin and wetland loss in the lower basin. Trophic state analysis found the upper basin to be eutrophic and the …

Applying Cumulative Effects To Strategically Advance Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration, Heida L. Diefenderfer, Gregory D. Steyer, Matthew C. Harwell, Andrew J. Loschiavo, Hilary A. Neckles, David M. Burdick, Gary E. Johnson, Kate E. Buenau, Elene Trujillo, John C. Callaway, Ronald M. Thom, Neil K. Ganju, Robert R. Twilley

Faculty Publications

International efforts to restore degraded ecosystems will continue to expand over the coming decades, yet the factors contributing to the effectiveness of long-term restoration across large areas remain largely unexplored. At large scales, outcomes are more complex and synergistic than the additive impacts of individual restoration projects. Here, we propose a cumulative-effects conceptual framework to inform restoration design and implementation and to comprehensively measure ecological outcomes. To evaluate and illustrate this approach, we reviewed long-term restoration in several large coastal and riverine areas across the US: the greater Florida Everglades; Gulf of Mexico coast; lower Columbia River and estuary; Puget …

Preparedness, Planning, And Advances In Operational Response, David G. Westerholm, Cameron H. Ainsworth, Christopher H. Barker, Peter G. Brewer, John W. Farrington, Dubravko Justić, Vassiliki H. Kourafalou, Steven A. Murawski, John G. Shepherd, Helena M. Solo-Gabriele

Faculty Publications

During the last 50 years, the numbers and sizes of oil spills have been significantly reduced through prevention. But spills still occur, and it is critical to prepare for these events through planning and exercises. Operational decisions are designed to expedite cleanup and minimize overall impacts, yet they often involve complex tradeoffs between a multitude of competing interests. It is imperative to apply the best technology and science when events occur. However, while planning and response tactics have evolved over time, determining what may be most at risk is often confounded by sparse background data, modeling limitations, scalability, or research …

Physical Transport Processes That Affect The Distribution Of Oil In The Gulf Of Mexico Observations And Modeling, Michel Boufadel, Annalisa Bracco, Eric P. Chassignet, Shuyi S. Chen, Eric D’Asaro, William K. Dewar, Oscar Garcia-Pineda, Dubravko Justić, Joseph Katz, Vassiliki H. Kourafalou, Ian R. Macdonald, Tamay M. Özgökmen, Claire B. Paris-Limouzy, Scott S. Socolofsky, David Halpern, John G. Shepherd

Faculty Publications

Physical transport processes such as the circulation and mixing of waters largely determine the spatial distribution of materials in the ocean. They also establish the physical environment within which biogeochemical and other processes transform materials, including naturally occurring nutrients and human-made contaminants that may sustain or harm the region’s living resources. Thus, understanding and modeling the transport and distribution of materials provides a crucial substrate for determining the effects of biological, geological, and chemical processes. The wide range of scales in which these physical processes operate includes microscale droplets and bubbles; small-scale turbulence in buoyant plumes and the near-surface “mixed” …

A Reporting Format For Leaf-Level Gas Exchange Data And Metadata, Kim S. Ely, Alistair Rogers, Deborah A. Agarwal, Elizabeth A. Ainsworth, Loren P. Albert, Ashehad Ali, Jeremiah Anderson, Michael J. Aspinwall, Chandra Bellasio, Carl Bernacchi, Steve Bonnage, Thomas N. Buckley, James Bunce, Angela C. Burnett, Florian A. Busch, Amanda Cavanagh, Lucas A. Cernusak, Robert Crystal-Ornelas, Joan Damerow, Kenneth J. Davidson, Martin G. De Kauwe, Michael C. Dietze, Tomas F. Domingues, Mirindi Eric Dusenge, David S. Ellsworth, John R. Evans, Paul P.G. Gauthier, Bruno O. Gimenez, Elizabeth P. Gordon, Christopher M. Gough, Aud H. Halbritter, David T. Hanson, Mary Heskel, J. Aaron Hogan, Jason R. Hupp, Kolby Jardine, Jens Kattge, Trevor Keenan, Johannes Kromdijk, Dushan P. Kumarathunge, Julien Lamour, Andrew D.B. Leakey, David S. Lebauer, Qianyu Li, Marjorie R. Lundgren, Nate Mcdowell, Katherine Meacham-Hensold, Belinda E. Medlyn, David J.P. Moore, Robinson Negrón-Juárez, Ülo Niinemets, Colin P. Osborne, Alexandria L. Pivovaroff, Hendrik Poorter, Sasha C. Reed, Youngryel Ryu, Alvaro Sanz-Saez, Stephanie C. Schmiege, Shawn P. Serbin, Thomas D. Sharkey, Martijn Slot, Nicholas G. Smith, Balasaheb V. Sonawane, Paul F. South, Daisy C. Souza, Joseph Ronald Stinziano, Ellen Stuart-Haëntjens, Samuel H. Taylor, Mauricio D. Tejera, Johan Uddling, Vigdis Vandvik, Charuleka Varadharajan, Anthony P. Walker, Berkley J. Walker, Jeffrey M. Warren, Danielle A. Way, Brett T. Wolfe, Jin Wu, Stan D. Wullschleger, Chonggang Xu, Zhengbing Yan, Dedi Yang

Faculty Publications

© 2021 The Authors Leaf-level gas exchange data support the mechanistic understanding of plant fluxes of carbon and water. These fluxes inform our understanding of ecosystem function, are an important constraint on parameterization of terrestrial biosphere models, are necessary to understand the response of plants to global environmental change, and are integral to efforts to improve crop production. Collection of these data using gas analyzers can be both technically challenging and time consuming, and individual studies generally focus on a small range of species, restricted time periods, or limited geographic regions. The high value of these data is exemplified by …

Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Discrimination Claims Under The Fair Housing Act After Bostock V. Clayton County, Rigel C. Oliveri

Faculty Publications

On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, ruling by a vote of 6-3 that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination. The majority held that the statute's prohibition against discrimination in employment "because of ... sex" necessarily applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender identity.

This decision will undoubtedly have ramifications reaching beyond the employment context because many other federal statutes contain language similar to that in Title VII. In particular, the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), …

A Facility For The Research, Development, And Translation Of Advanced Technologies For Ion-Beam Therapies, M. Lis, W. Newhauser, M. Donetti, M. Durante, U. Weber, B. Zipfel, C. Hartmann-Sauter, M. Wolf, C. Graeff

Faculty Publications

This article describes the updated GSI radiotherapy research facility (Cave M) located at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany. This facility was upgraded by modernizing the beamline that supported a pilot project in carbon ion cancer therapy in Europe from 1997 to 2008. Descriptions are provided of the modernized beamline, related hardware components and treatment delivery system. The performance specifications and general characteristics for each major component are described, along with example pre-clinical test results of selected components. These upgrades to Cave M allow for investigating novel therapy methods. The radiotherapy research facility is located …

Long‐Term Monitoring Reveals Differential Responses Mussel And Host Fish Communities In A Biodiversity Hotspot, Irene Sanchez Gonzalez, Garrett W. Hopper, Jamie Bucholz, Carla L. Atkinson

Faculty Publications

Biodiversity hotspots can serve as protected areas that aid in species conservation. Long-term monitoring of multiple taxonomic groups within biodiversity hotspots can offer insight into factors influencing their dynamics. Mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) and fish are highly diverse and imperiled groups of organisms with contrasting life histories that should influence their response to ecological factors associated with local and global change. Here we use historical and contempo-rary fish and mussel survey data to assess fish and mussel community changes over a 33 year period (1986–2019) and relationships between mussel abundance and their host fish abundance in Bogue Chitto Creek, a tributary …

Revamping Ecosystem Services Through Agroecology—The Case Of Cereals, Gomathy Sethuraman, Nurul Amalina Mohd Zain, Sumiani Yusoff, Yin Mei Ng, Niranjan Baisakh, Acga Cheng

Faculty Publications

Globally, farming systems are mostly dominated by monoculture, which has the advantage of profitability at the expense of ecological systems. Recent years have witnessed an increasing mo-mentum in global efforts to deploy sustainable agriculture practices that mimic ecological processes, with agroecology at the forefront. In addition to the ecological aspect, agroecology also encompasses economic and social aspects targeting the whole food system. Transformative agroecology has been recognized as a stepping stone to achieving several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), due to its great potential to build climate change-resilient farming systems while enhancing ecosystem services and reducing biodiversity loss. Nonetheless, the available …

Diversity And N2o Production Potential Of Fungi In An Oceanic Oxygen Minimum Zone, Xuefeng Peng, David L. Valentine

Faculty Publications

Fungi in terrestrial environments are known to play a key role in carbon and nitrogen biogeochemistry and exhibit high diversity. In contrast, the diversity and function of fungi in the ocean has remained underexplored and largely neglected. In the eastern tropical North Pacific oxygen minimum zone, we examined the fungal diversity by sequencing the internal transcribed spacer region 2 (ITS2) and mining a metagenome dataset collected from the same region. Additionally, we coupled ¹⁵N-tracer experiments with a selective inhibition method to determine the potential contribution of marine fungi to nitrous oxide (N₂O) production. Fungal communities evaluated by …

Theoretical Analysis Of The Adsorption Of Phosphoric Acid And Model Phosphate Monoesters On Ceo2(111), Suman Bhasker-Ranganath, Chuanlin Zhao, Ye Xu

Faculty Publications

Ceria has been shown to catalyze the dephosphorylation of phosphate monoesters at ambient temperature. As a step toward understanding the reaction mechanism on ceria, first-principles density functional theory calculations in the GGA-PW91+U approach have been carried out to study the adsorption of phosphoric acid and two model phosphate monoesters, methyl phosphate and para-nitrophenyl phosphate, on CeO2(111). Consistent patterns are found in terms of energetic, structural, electronic, and vibrational properties upon adsorption. For the parent molecules, bonding of the phosphorous atom directly to a surface lattice oxygen atom (Olatt) is the only stable molecular adsorption state. Common entities that reduce Ce4+ …

Response Inhibition Deficits In Women With The Fmr1 Premutation Are Associated With Age And Fall Risk, Carly Moser, Lyndsay Schmitt, Joseph Schmidt, Amanda Fairchild, Jessica Klusek

Faculty Publications

One in 113-178 females worldwide carry a premutation allele on the FMR1 gene. The FMR1 premutation is linked to neurocognitive and neuromotor impairments, although the phenotype is not fully understood, particularly with respect to age effects. This study sought to define oculomotor response inhibition skills in women with the FMR1 premutation and their association with age and fall risk. We employed an antisaccade eye-tracking paradigm to index oculomotor inhibition skills in 35 women with the FMR1 premutation and 28 control women. The FMR1 premutation group exhibited longer antisaccade latency and reduced accuracy relative to controls, indicating deficient response inhibition skills. …

Elaborating The Science Of Food Choice For Rapidly Changing Food Systems In Low-And Middle-Income Countries, Christine E. Blake Ph.D., Rd, Edward A. Frongillo Jr. Ph.D., Andrea M. Warren, Shilpa V. Constantinides, Krystal K. Rampalli, Shiva Bhandari

Faculty Publications

The world’s food systems and environments have been changing dramatically, concomitant with changes in overand undernutrition. We elaborate the science of food choice to better understand, analyze, and respond to relationships between changing food environments and food choice. The science of food choice is concerned with generating knowledge about causal drivers of food choice decision making processes and behavior within immediate food and social environments. Three fundamental and interconnected questions undergird this science; 1) what do people eat from the options available and accessible?; 2) how do people interact with food environments?; and 3) why do people decide to acquire, …

No Evidence That Salt Water Ingestion Kills Adult Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae), Donald A. Yee, Catherine Dean, Cameron Webb, Jennifer A. Henke, Gabriela Perezchica-Harvey, Gregory S. White, Ary Faraji, Joshua D. Macaluso, Rebecca Christofferson

Faculty Publications

Various products and insecticides are available that purport to reduce wild populations of adult mosquitoes. Recently, several manufacturers and general public comments on the internet have promoted devices that claim that ingestion of salt will significantly reduce populations of wild mosquitoes to near zero; there are no known scientific efficacy data that support these claims. We tested the survival of nine mosquito species of pest and public health importance across four adult diets: Water Only, Sugar Water Only (8.00%), Salt Water Only (1.03%), and Sugar + Salt Water. Species included the following: Aedes aegypti (L.), Aedes albopictus (Skuse), Aedes dorsalis …

Prospects For Gulf Of Mexico Environmental Recovery And Restoration, Denis A. Wiesenburg, Bob Shipp, F. Joel Fodrie, Sean Powers, Julien Lartigue, Kelly M. Darnell, Melissa M. Baustian, Cam Ngo, John F. Valentine, Kateryna Wowk

Faculty Publications

Previous oil spills provide clear evidence that ecosystem restoration efforts are challenging, and recovery can take decades. Similar to the Ixtoc 1 well blowout in 1979, the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was enormous both in volume of oil spilled and duration, resulting in environmental impacts from the deep ocean to the Gulf of Mexico coastline. Data collected during the National Resource Damage Assessment showed significant damage to coastal areas (especially marshes), marine organisms, and deep-sea habitat. Previous spills have shown that disparate regions recover at different rates, with especially long-term effects in salt marshes and deepsea habitat. Environmental recovery …

Perspective On Multi-Scale Simulation Of Thermal Transport In Solids And Interfaces (Vol 23, Pg 1785, 2021), Ming Hu, Zhonghua Yang

Faculty Publications

Correction for ‘Perspective on multi-scale simulation of thermal transport in solids and interfaces’ by Ming Hu et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2021, 23, 1785–1801, DOI: 10.1039/D0CP03372C.

Updated Status Of Bayou Darter, A Narrowly Ranged Endemic In A Geomorphically Active Watershed, Joshua Hubbell, Loren Stearman, Jacob Schaefer

Faculty Publications

Comparison of historical and current data are critical in establishing population trends for imperiled taxa. In this paper we revisit the status of the Bayou darter Nothonotus rubrum, an endemic fish restricted to the Bayou Pierre river system, Mississippi, USA. The Bayou Pierre has experienced substantial geomorphic change in the past century, leading to questions about persistence of this imperiled species. We employed historical field notes and museum records to identify collection localities, and we resampled 32 of these localities using methodologies comparable to the original samples. We further sampled an additional 10 sites with similar methodologies to fill …

Microbial Functional Responses In Marine Biofilms Exposed To Deepwater Horizon Spill Contaminants, Rachel L. Mugge, Jennifer L. Salerno, Leila J. Hamdan

Faculty Publications

Marine biofilms are essential biological components that transform built structures into artificial reefs. Anthropogenic contaminants released into the marine environment, such as crude oil and chemical dispersant from an oil spill, may disrupt the diversity and function of these foundational biofilms. To investigate the response of marine biofilm microbiomes from distinct environments to contaminants and to address microbial functional response, biofilm metagenomes were analyzed from two short-term microcosms, one using surface seawater (SSW) and the other using deep seawater (DSW). Following exposure to crude oil, chemical dispersant, and dispersed oil, taxonomically distinct communities were observed between microcosms from different source …

Maternal Dietary Quality, Inflammatory Potential And Childhood Adiposity: An Individual Participant Data Pooled Analysis Of Seven European Cohorts In The Alphabet Consortium, Ling-Wei Chen, Adrien M. Aubert, Nitin Shivappa, Jonathan Y. Bernard, Sara M. Mensink-Bout, Aisling A. Geraghty, John Mehegan, Matthew Suderman, Kinga Polanska, Wojciech Hanke, Agnieszka Jankowska, Caroline L. Relton, Sarah R. Crozier, Nicholas C. Harvey, Cyrus Cooper, Mark Hanson, Keith M. Godfrey, Romy Gaillard, Liesbeth Duijts, Barbara Heude, James Hébert Scd, Fionnuala M. Mcauliffe, Cecily Kelleher, Catherine M. Phillips

Faculty Publications

Background

Mounting evidence suggests that maternal diet influences pregnancy and birth outcomes, but its contribution to the global epidemic of childhood obesity has not as yet been definitively characterized. We investigated whether maternal whole diet quality and inflammatory potential influence childhood adiposity.

Methods

We harmonized and pooled individual participant data from 16,295 mother-child pairs in seven European birth cohorts. Maternal pre-, early-, late-, and whole-pregnancy (any time during pregnancy) dietary quality and inflammatory potential assessed with the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) score and the energy-adjusted Dietary Inflammatory Index (E-DII™) score, respectively. Primary outcome was childhood overweight and obesity …

Synergies Among Environmental Science Research And Monitoring Networks: A Research Agenda, J. A. Jones, P. M. Groffman, J. Blair, F. W. Davis, H. Dugan, E. E. Euskirchen, Serita D. Frey, T. K. Harms, E. Hinckley, M. Kosmala, S. Loberg, S. Malone, K. Novick, S. Malone, K. Novick, S. Record, A. V. Rocha, B. L. Ruddell, E. H. Stanley, C. Sturtevant, A. Thorpe, T. White, W. R. Wieder, L. Zhai, K. Zhu

Faculty Publications

Many research and monitoring networks in recent decades have provided publicly available data documenting environmental and ecological change, but little is known about the status of efforts to synthesize this information across networks. We convened a working group to assess ongoing and potential cross-network synthesis research and outline opportunities and challenges for the future, focusing on the US-based research network (the US Long-Term Ecological Research network, LTER) and monitoring network (the National Ecological Observatory Network, NEON). LTER-NEON cross-network research synergies arise from the potentials for LTER measurements, experiments, models, and observational studies to provide context and mechanisms for interpreting NEON …

End-To-End Modeling Reveals Species-Specific Effects Of Large-Scale Coastal Restoration On Living Resources Facing Climate Change, Kim De Mutsert, Kristy A. Lewis, Eric D. White, Joe Buszowski

Faculty Publications

Coastal erosion and wetland loss are affecting Louisiana to such an extent that the loss of land between 1932 and 2016 was close to 5,000 km². To mitigate this decline, coastal protection and restoration projects are being planned and implemented by the State of Louisiana, United States. The Louisiana Coastal Master Plan (CMP) is an adaptive management approach that provides a suite of projects that are predicted to build or maintain land and protect coastal communities. Restoring the coast with this 50-year large-scale restoration and risk reduction plan has the potential to change the biomass and distribution of …

Coarse-Grained Simulation Of Pegylated And Tethered Protein Devices At All Experimentally Accessible Surface Residues On Β-Lactamase For Stability Analysis And Comparison, Addison K. Smith, Mehran Sultani, Joshua Wilkerson, Brandon Timmerman, Emily Long Zhao, Bradley C. Bundy, Thomas A. Knotts

Faculty Publications

PEGylated and surface-tethered proteins are used in a variety of biotechnological applications, but traditional methods offer little control over the placement of the functionalization sites on the protein. Fortunately, recent experimental methods functionalize the protein at any location on the amino acid sequence, so the question becomes one of selecting the site that will result in the best protein function. This work shows how molecular simulation can be used to screen potential attachment sites for surface tethering or PEGylation. Previous simulation work has shown promise in this regard for a model protein, but these studies are limited to screening only …

Greater Pain Severity Is Associated With Higher Glucocorticoid Levels In Hair Among A Cohort Of People Living With Hiv, Quan Zhang, Xiaoming Li Ph.D., Shan Qiao Ph.D., Shuaifeng Liu, Zhiyong Shen, Yuejiao Zhou

Faculty Publications

Background: Pain is a common occurrence and persistent symptom, which has an adverse impact on individual well-being and quality of life among people living with HIV (PLHIV). Alteration in the activity of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis resulting in abnormal glucocorticoid levels had been proposed to play important roles in those associations. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate whether pain severity was associated with hair glucocorticoid levels, a novel method of measuring long-term glucocorticoid exposure, among a large cohort of Chinese PLHIV. Methods: A measure of pain severity and hair samples were collected from 431 adults PLHIV in Guangxi, China. Glucocorticoid …

Reviews And Syntheses: The Biogeochemical Cycle Of Silicon In The Modern Ocean, Paul J. Tréguer, Jill N. Sutton, Mark Brzezinski, Matthew A. Charette, Timothy Devries, Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Claudia Ehlert, Jon Hawkings, Aude Leynaert, Su Mei Liu, Natalia Llopis Monferrer, María López-Acosta, Manuel Maldonado, Shaily Rahman, Lihua Ran, Olivier Rouxel

Faculty Publications

The element silicon (Si) is required for the growth of silicified organisms in marine environments, such as diatoms. These organisms consume vast amounts of Si together with N, P, and C, connecting the biogeochemical cycles of these elements. Thus, understanding the Si cycle in the ocean is critical for understanding wider issues such as carbon sequestration by the ocean's biological pump. In this review, we show that recent advances in process studies indicate that total Si inputs and outputs, to and from the world ocean, are 57 % and 37 % higher, respectively, than previous estimates. We also update the …

The Influence Of Geographic Variation In Vegetation Characteristics On Habitat Use And Productivity Of An Endangered Warbler, Ashley M. Long, Heather A. Mathewson, Michael L. Morrison

Faculty Publications

Understanding how geographic variation in environmental conditions influences species’ distributions and population dynamics is critical for effective management of at-risk species and can help us anticipate wildlife responses to future change. The Golden-cheeked Warbler (Setophaga chrysoparia; hereafter warbler) is an endangered migratory songbird that nests in oak-juniper woodland in Texas. From 2009 to 2013, we monitored 895 warbler territories at 90 study sites located across the warbler's breeding range to examine how geographic variation in vegetation characteristics influenced aspects of warbler habitat selection and productivity. We found range-wide variation in the tree species composition and vegetation structure of warbler habitat. …