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Plasmon-Enhanced Photocleaving Dynamics In Colloidal Microrna-Functionalized Silver Nanoparticles Monitored With Second Harmonic Generation, Raju R. Kumal, Mohammad Abu-Laban, Corey R. Landry, Blake Kruger, Zhenyu Zhang, Daniel J. Hayes, Louis H. Haber Oct 2016

Plasmon-Enhanced Photocleaving Dynamics In Colloidal Microrna-Functionalized Silver Nanoparticles Monitored With Second Harmonic Generation, Raju R. Kumal, Mohammad Abu-Laban, Corey R. Landry, Blake Kruger, Zhenyu Zhang, Daniel J. Hayes, Louis H. Haber

Faculty Publications

© 2016 American Chemical Society. The photocleaving dynamics of colloidal microRNA-functionalized nanoparticles are studied using time-dependent second harmonic generation (SHG) measurements. Model drug-delivery systems composed of oligonucleotides attached to either silver nanoparticles or polystyrene nanoparticles using a nitrobenzyl photocleavable linker are prepared and characterized. The photoactivated controlled release is observed to be most efficient on resonance at 365 nm irradiation, with pseudo-first-order rate constants that are linearly proportional to irradiation powers. Additionally, silver nanoparticles show a 6-fold plasmon enhancement in photocleaving efficiency over corresponding polystyrene nanoparticle rates, while our previous measurements on gold nanoparticles show a 2-fold plasmon enhancement compared …

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Carotid Artery Imt, Blood Pressure, And Cardiovascular Risk Factors In Males And Females, Christina M. Cromwell, Kristin R. Aichele, Joyann E. Oakman, Michael P. Neal, Jessica M. Lenzo, Avery N. Perez, Naomi L. Bye, Erica L. Santaniello, Jessica A. Hill, Rachel C. Evans, Karla A. Thiele, Lauren N. Chavis, Allyson K. Getty, Tia R. Wisdo, Deborah L. Feairheller Oct 2016

Carotid Artery Imt, Blood Pressure, And Cardiovascular Risk Factors In Males And Females, Christina M. Cromwell, Kristin R. Aichele, Joyann E. Oakman, Michael P. Neal, Jessica M. Lenzo, Avery N. Perez, Naomi L. Bye, Erica L. Santaniello, Jessica A. Hill, Rachel C. Evans, Karla A. Thiele, Lauren N. Chavis, Allyson K. Getty, Tia R. Wisdo, Deborah L. Feairheller

Faculty Publications

Previous studies have investigated carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) and blood pressure and found a direct correlation between the two. It is known that adult females have better cardiovascular health than males until a certain stage of life, yet limited research has examined gender differences in vascular function. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate vascular structure and function, blood pressure, and blood glucose/cholesterol levels in relation to gender differences in young healthy adults. On three separate days, 44 adults (26.30 ±11.9yrs; 24M, 20F) completed a carotid IMT ultrasound, a flow-mediated dilation (FMD), a fasted glucose and cholesterol …

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Willet Be One Species Or Two? A Genomic View Of The Evolutionary History Of Tringa Semipalmata, Jessica A. Oswald, Michael G. Harvey, Rosalind C. Remsen, Depaul U. Foxworth, Steven W. Cardiff, Donna L. Dittmann, Libby C. Megna, Matthew D. Carling, Robb T. Brumfield Oct 2016

Willet Be One Species Or Two? A Genomic View Of The Evolutionary History Of Tringa Semipalmata, Jessica A. Oswald, Michael G. Harvey, Rosalind C. Remsen, Depaul U. Foxworth, Steven W. Cardiff, Donna L. Dittmann, Libby C. Megna, Matthew D. Carling, Robb T. Brumfield

Faculty Publications

© 2016 American Ornithologists' Union. The Willet (Tringa semipalmata; Scolopacidae) is composed of 2 morphologically and vocally distinct subspecies with broadly disjunct breeding distributions in North America. Nominate T. s. semipalmata breeds in coastal salt and brackish marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of eastern North America and the West Indies, and T. s. inornata breeds in wet grasslands and prairies in the northwestern interior of North America. To assess divergence and test for hybridization between the 2 subspecies, we sampled breeding and wintering populations and collected morphological data, mitochondrial DNA sequences from the ND2 locus, and nuclear DNA …

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The Impact Of A Large-Scale Climate Event On Antarctic Ecosystem Processes, Andrew G. Fountain, Grace Saba, Byron Adams, Peter Doran, William Fraser, Michael Gooseff, Maciej Obryk, John C. Priscu, Sharon Stammerjohn, Ross A. Virginia Oct 2016

The Impact Of A Large-Scale Climate Event On Antarctic Ecosystem Processes, Andrew G. Fountain, Grace Saba, Byron Adams, Peter Doran, William Fraser, Michael Gooseff, Maciej Obryk, John C. Priscu, Sharon Stammerjohn, Ross A. Virginia

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s) 2016. Extreme climate and weather events, such as a drought, hurricanes, or ice storms, can strongly imprint ecosystem processing and may alter ecosystem structure. Ecosystems in extreme environments are particularly vulnerable because of their adaptation to severe limitations in energy, water, or nutrients. The vulnerability can be expressed as a relatively long-lasting ecosystem response to a small or brief change in environmental conditions. Such an event occurred in Antarctica and affected two vastly different ecosystems: a marine-dominated coastal system and a terrestrial polar desert. Both sites experienced winds that warmed air temperatures above the 0°C threshold, …

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Adaptation To Climate Change: Trade-Offs Among Responses To Multiple Stressors In An Intertidal Crustacean, Morgan W. Kelly, Melissa B. Debiasse, Vidal A. Villela, Hope L. Roberts, Colleen F. Cecola Oct 2016

Adaptation To Climate Change: Trade-Offs Among Responses To Multiple Stressors In An Intertidal Crustacean, Morgan W. Kelly, Melissa B. Debiasse, Vidal A. Villela, Hope L. Roberts, Colleen F. Cecola

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Trade-offs may influence both physiological and evolutionary responses to co-occurring stressors, but their effects on both plastic and adaptive responses to climate change are poorly understood. To test for genetic and physiological trade-offs incurred in tolerating multiple stressors, we hybridized two populations of the intertidal copepod Tigriopus californicus that were divergent for both heat and salinity tolerance. Starting in the F2 generation, we selected for increased tolerance of heat, low salinity, and high salinity in replicate lines. After five generations of selection, heat-selected lines had greater heat …

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Physiological Plasticity And Local Adaptation To Elevated Pco2 In Calcareous Algae: An Ontogenetic And Geographic Approach, Jacqueline L. Padilla-Gamiño, Juan Diego Gaitán-Espitia, Morgan W. Kelly, Gretchen E. Hofmann Oct 2016

Physiological Plasticity And Local Adaptation To Elevated Pco2 In Calcareous Algae: An Ontogenetic And Geographic Approach, Jacqueline L. Padilla-Gamiño, Juan Diego Gaitán-Espitia, Morgan W. Kelly, Gretchen E. Hofmann

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. To project how ocean acidification will impact biological communities in the future, it is critical to understand the potential for local adaptation and the physiological plasticity of marine organisms throughout their entire life cycle, as some stages may be more vulnerable than others. Coralline algae are ecosystem engineers that play significant functional roles in oceans worldwide and are considered vulnerable to ocean acidification. Using different stages of coralline algae, we tested the hypothesis that populations living in environments with higher environmental variability and exposed to higher levels …

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Cryopreservation Of Lipid Bilayers By Lea Proteins From Artemia Franciscana And Trehalose, Daniel S. Moore, Steven C. Hand Oct 2016

Cryopreservation Of Lipid Bilayers By Lea Proteins From Artemia Franciscana And Trehalose, Daniel S. Moore, Steven C. Hand

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. The capacity of Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) proteins and trehalose to protect liposomes against freezing-induced damage was examined by measuring the leakage of 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein (CF). Liposomes were prepared to simulate the lipid compositions of the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM), and inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM). Two recombinant LEA proteins belonging to Group 3 (AfrLEA2 and AfrLEA3m) were expressed and purified from embryos of Artemia franciscana. Only OMM-like liposomes were significantly protected by AfrLEA2 and AfrLEA3m against freeze-thaw damage; at the highest protein:lipid mass ratio tested, leakage of CF was 56.3% of …

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Sex And Tissue Specificity Of Peg3 Promoters, Bambarendage P.U. Perera, Joomyeong Kim Oct 2016

Sex And Tissue Specificity Of Peg3 Promoters, Bambarendage P.U. Perera, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Perera, Kim. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The expression of mouse Peg3 (Paternally expressed gene 3) is driven by 4 promoters, including its main and three alternative promoters. The sexual, temporal and spatial specificity of these promoters was characterized in the current study. According to the results, the main promoter displays ubiquitous expression patterns throughout different stages and tissues. In contrast, the expression of Peg3 driven by the alternative …

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Assessing The Similarity Of Ligand Binding Conformations With The Contact Mode Score, Yun Ding, Ye Fang, Juana Moreno, J. Ramanujam, Mark Jarrell, Michal Brylinski Oct 2016

Assessing The Similarity Of Ligand Binding Conformations With The Contact Mode Score, Yun Ding, Ye Fang, Juana Moreno, J. Ramanujam, Mark Jarrell, Michal Brylinski

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd Structural and computational biologists often need to measure the similarity of ligand binding conformations. The commonly used root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) is not only ligand-size dependent, but also may fail to capture biologically meaningful binding features. To address these issues, we developed the Contact Mode Score (CMS), a new metric to assess the conformational similarity based on intermolecular protein-ligand contacts. The CMS is less dependent on the ligand size and has the ability to include flexible receptors. In order to effectively compare binding poses of non-identical ligands bound to different proteins, we further developed the eXtended Contact …

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A Geometrical Model For Testing Bilateral Symmetry Of Bamboo Leaf With A Simplified Gielis Equation, Shuyan Lin, Li Zhang, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Cang Hui, Johan Gielis, Yulong Ding, Peijian Shi Oct 2016

A Geometrical Model For Testing Bilateral Symmetry Of Bamboo Leaf With A Simplified Gielis Equation, Shuyan Lin, Li Zhang, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Cang Hui, Johan Gielis, Yulong Ding, Peijian Shi

Faculty Publications

The size and shape of plant leaves change with growth, and an accurate description of leaf shape is crucial for describing plant morphogenesis and development. Bilateral symmetry, which has been widely observed but poorly examined, occurs in both dicot and monocot leaves, including all nominated bamboo species (approximately 1,300 species), of which at least 500 are found in China. Although there are apparent differences in leaf size among bamboo species due to genetic and environmental profiles, bamboo leaves have bilateral symmetry with parallel venation and appear similar across species. Here, we investigate whether the shape of bamboo leaves can be …

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The Genetics Of Blood Pressure Regulation And Its Target Organs From Association Studies In 342,415 Individuals, Georg B. Ehret, Teresa Ferreira, Daniel I. Chasman, Anne U. Jackson, Ellen M. Schmidt, Toby Johnson, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Jian'an Luan, Louise A. Donnelly, Stavroula Kanoni, Ann Kristin Petersen, Vasyl Pihur, Rona J. Strawbridge, Dmitry Shungin, Maria F. Hughes, Osorio Meirelles, Marika Kaakinen, Nabila Bouatia-Naji, Kati Kristiansson, Sonia Shah, Marcus E. Kleber, Xiuqing Guo, Leo Pekka Lyytikäinen, Cristiano Fava, Niclas Eriksson, Ilja M. Nolte, Patrik K. Magnusson, Elias L. Salfati, Loukianos S. Rallidis, Elizabeth Theusch, Andrew J.P. Smith, Lasse Folkersen, Kate Witkowska Oct 2016

The Genetics Of Blood Pressure Regulation And Its Target Organs From Association Studies In 342,415 Individuals, Georg B. Ehret, Teresa Ferreira, Daniel I. Chasman, Anne U. Jackson, Ellen M. Schmidt, Toby Johnson, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Jian'an Luan, Louise A. Donnelly, Stavroula Kanoni, Ann Kristin Petersen, Vasyl Pihur, Rona J. Strawbridge, Dmitry Shungin, Maria F. Hughes, Osorio Meirelles, Marika Kaakinen, Nabila Bouatia-Naji, Kati Kristiansson, Sonia Shah, Marcus E. Kleber, Xiuqing Guo, Leo Pekka Lyytikäinen, Cristiano Fava, Niclas Eriksson, Ilja M. Nolte, Patrik K. Magnusson, Elias L. Salfati, Loukianos S. Rallidis, Elizabeth Theusch, Andrew J.P. Smith, Lasse Folkersen, Kate Witkowska

Faculty Publications

To dissect the genetic architecture of blood pressure and assess effects on target organ damage, we analyzed 128,272 SNPs from targeted and genome-wide arrays in 201,529 individuals of European ancestry, and genotypes from an additional 140,886 individuals were used for validation. We identified 66 blood pressure-associated loci, of which 17 were new; 15 harbored multiple distinct association signals. The 66 index SNPs were enriched for cis-regulatory elements, particularly in vascular endothelial cells, consistent with a primary role in blood pressure control through modulation of vascular tone across multiple tissues. The 66 index SNPs combined in a risk score showed comparable …

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Amine Reactive Dyes: An Alternative To Estimate Membrane Integrity In Fish Sperm Cells, Leticia Torres, Terrence R. Tiersch Oct 2016

Amine Reactive Dyes: An Alternative To Estimate Membrane Integrity In Fish Sperm Cells, Leticia Torres, Terrence R. Tiersch

Faculty Publications

Fluorescent dyes that binds irreversibly to cellular amines, come in several available emission spectra, and do not poses health concerns were used to evaluate membrane integrity in fish sperm cells. The objectives of the present study were to determine: (1) a working dye concentration for fish sperm samples, and (2) if the traditional propidium iodide/SYBR-14 staining combination was comparable with the amine reactive dye (ARD) methods at identifying cell populations with intact and compromised membranes after sperm activation, refrigerated storage, and exposure to cryoprotectant and surfactant. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) sperm were obtained by stripping, and pooled samples (in triplicate) were …

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Do Movement Behaviors Identify Reproductive Habitat Sampling For Wild Turkeys?, Mason D. Conley, Nathan A. Yeldell, Michael J. Chamberlain, Bret A. Collier Oct 2016

Do Movement Behaviors Identify Reproductive Habitat Sampling For Wild Turkeys?, Mason D. Conley, Nathan A. Yeldell, Michael J. Chamberlain, Bret A. Collier

Faculty Publications

Selection of habitats has regularly been suggested to influence species demography at both local and broad scales. The expectation is that selection behaviors have positive benefits via greater fitness or increased survival. The current paradigm of habitat selection theory suggests a hierarchical process, where an individual first selects where they choose to live (e.g., range) and then searches and selects locations within this range meeting life history needs. Using high-frequency GPS data collected from reproductively active Rio Grande (n = 21) and Eastern (n = 23) wild turkeys, we evaluated a long-standing theory for ground-nesting galliformes, in that movements during …

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Genetic Vulnerability And The Relationship Of Commercial Germplasms Of Maize In Brazil With The Nested Association Mapping Parents, Luciano Rogério Braatz De Andrade, Roberto Fritsche Neto, Ítalo Stefanine Correia Granato, Gustavo César Sant'ana, Pedro Patric Pinho Morais, Aluízio Borém Oct 2016

Genetic Vulnerability And The Relationship Of Commercial Germplasms Of Maize In Brazil With The Nested Association Mapping Parents, Luciano Rogério Braatz De Andrade, Roberto Fritsche Neto, Ítalo Stefanine Correia Granato, Gustavo César Sant'ana, Pedro Patric Pinho Morais, Aluízio Borém

Faculty Publications

A few breeding companies dominate the maize (Zea mays L.) hybrid market in Brazil: Monsanto ® (35%), DuPont Pioneer® (30%), Dow Agrosciences® (15%), Syngenta® (10%) and Helix Sementes (4%). Therefore, it is important to monitor the genetic diversity in commercial germplasms as breeding practices, registration and marketing of new cultivars can lead to a significant reduction of the genetic diversity. Reduced genetic variation may lead to crop vulnerabilities, food insecurity and limited genetic gains following selection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic vulnerability risk by examining the relationship between the commercial Brazilian maize germplasms and the …

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Sexually Dimorphic Gene Expression In Bovine Conceptuses At The Initiation Of Implantation, Niamh Forde, Veronica Maillo, Peadar O'Gaora, Constantine A. Simintiras, Roger G. Sturmey, Alan D. Ealy, Thomas E. Spencer, Alfonso Gutierrez-Adan, Dimitrios Rizos, Patrick Lonergan Oct 2016

Sexually Dimorphic Gene Expression In Bovine Conceptuses At The Initiation Of Implantation, Niamh Forde, Veronica Maillo, Peadar O'Gaora, Constantine A. Simintiras, Roger G. Sturmey, Alan D. Ealy, Thomas E. Spencer, Alfonso Gutierrez-Adan, Dimitrios Rizos, Patrick Lonergan

Faculty Publications

In cattle, maternal recognition of pregnancy occurs on Day 16 via secretion of interferon tau (IFNT) by the conceptus. The endometrium can distinguish between embryos with different developmental competencies. In eutherian mammals, X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) is required to ensure an equal transcriptional level of most X-linked genes for both male and female embryos in adult tissues, but this process is markedly different in cattle than mice. We examined how sexual dimorphism affected conceptus transcript abundance and amino acid composition as well as the endometrial transcriptome during the peri-implantation period of pregnancy. Of the 5132 genes that were differentially expressed on …

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Dealloying Behavior Of Nico And Nicocu Thin Films, Benjamin Peecher, Jennifer R. Hampton Oct 2016

Dealloying Behavior Of Nico And Nicocu Thin Films, Benjamin Peecher, Jennifer R. Hampton

Faculty Publications

Porous metals and alloys, such as those fabricated via electrochemical dealloying, are of interest for a variety of energy applications, ranging from their potential for enhanced catalytic behavior to their use as high surface area supports for pseudocapacitor materials. Here, the electrochemical dealloying process was explored for electrodeposited binary NiCo and ternary NiCoCu thin films. For each of the four different metal ratios, films were dealloyed using linear sweep voltammetry to various potentials in order to gain insight into the evolution of the film over the course of the linear sweep. Electrochemical capacitance, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray …

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A General Elliptic Nonlinear System Of Two Functions With Application, Timothy Robertson, Joon Hyuk Kang Oct 2016

A General Elliptic Nonlinear System Of Two Functions With Application, Timothy Robertson, Joon Hyuk Kang

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to give a sufficient condition for the existence and nonexistence of positive solutions to a rather general type of elliptic system of the Dirichlet problem on the bounded domain Ω in Rn. Also considered are the effects of perturbations on the coexistence state and uniqueness. The techniques used in this paper are upper-lower solutions, eigenvalues of operators, maximum principles and spectrum estimates. The arguments also rely on some detailed properties for the solution of logistic equations. These results yield an algebraically computable criterion for the positive coexistence of competing species of animals in many …

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Modeling The Thickness Of Perennial Ice Covers On Stratified Lakes Of The Taylor Valley, Antarctica, M. K. Obryk, P. T. Doran, J. A. Hicks, C. P. Mckay, J. C. Priscu Oct 2016

Modeling The Thickness Of Perennial Ice Covers On Stratified Lakes Of The Taylor Valley, Antarctica, M. K. Obryk, P. T. Doran, J. A. Hicks, C. P. Mckay, J. C. Priscu

Faculty Publications

© The Author(s) 2016. A1-D ice cover model was developed to predict and constrain drivers of long-term ice thickness trends in chemically stratified lakes of Taylor Valley, Antarctica. The model is driven by surface radiative heat fluxes and heat fluxes from the underlying water column. The model successfully reproduced 16a (between 1996 and 2012) of ice thickness changes for the west lobe of Lake Bonney (average ice thickness = 3.53 m) and Lake Fryxell (average ice thickness = 4.22 m). Long-term ice thickness trends require coupling with the thermal structure of the water column. The heat stored within the temperature …

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Responses Of Antarctic Marine And Freshwater Ecosystems To Changing Ice Conditions, Maciej K. Obryk, Peter T. Doran, Ari S. Friedlaender, Michael N. Gooseff, Wei Li, Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss, John C. Priscu, Oscar Schofield, Sharon E. Stammerjohn, Deborah K. Steinberg, Hugh W. Ducklow Oct 2016

Responses Of Antarctic Marine And Freshwater Ecosystems To Changing Ice Conditions, Maciej K. Obryk, Peter T. Doran, Ari S. Friedlaender, Michael N. Gooseff, Wei Li, Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss, John C. Priscu, Oscar Schofield, Sharon E. Stammerjohn, Deborah K. Steinberg, Hugh W. Ducklow

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s) 2016. Polar regions are warming more rapidly than lower latitudes, and climate models predict that this trend will continue into the coming decades. Despite these observations and predictions, relatively little is known about how polar ecosystems have responded and will continue to respond to this change. Two Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites, located in contrasting environments in Antarctica, have been studying marine and aquatic terrestrial ecosystems for more than two decades. We use data from these research areas to show that the extent and thickness of ice covers are highly sensitive to short- and long-term climate …

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New Circumspection Of The Genus Gamochaeta (Asteraceae, Gnaphalieae) Inferred From Nuclear And Plastid Dna Sequences, Estrella Urtubey, Alicia López, María A. Chemisquy, Arne A. Anderberg, Carlos M. Baeza, Néstor D. Bayón, Leonardo P. Deble, Andrés Moreira-Muñoz, Guy L. Nesom, Mac H. Alford, Luciana Salomón, Susana E. Freire Oct 2016

New Circumspection Of The Genus Gamochaeta (Asteraceae, Gnaphalieae) Inferred From Nuclear And Plastid Dna Sequences, Estrella Urtubey, Alicia López, María A. Chemisquy, Arne A. Anderberg, Carlos M. Baeza, Néstor D. Bayón, Leonardo P. Deble, Andrés Moreira-Muñoz, Guy L. Nesom, Mac H. Alford, Luciana Salomón, Susana E. Freire

Faculty Publications

Gamochaeta (tribe Gnaphalieae, Asteraceae) is composed of ca. 60 species primarily distributed in tropical and subtropical America. Within the tribe Gnaphalieae, the genus is characterized by capitula arranged in spikes or head-like clusters, few hermaphroditic central florets, truncate style branches with apical sweeping trichomes, pappus bristles connate at the base into a ring falling as a unit, and achenes with globose twin trichomes. Previous molecular phylogenetic studies have suggested the paraphyly of the genus, but have not provided a basis for redefining generic limits due to incomplete taxon sampling. To address this problem, DNA sequences from the plastid (trn …

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A Snapshot Of The Microbiome Of Ambylomma Tuberculatum Ticks Infesting The Gopher Tortoise, An Endangered Species, Khemraj Budachetri, Daniel Lyle Gaillard, Jaclyn Bo Williams, Nabanita Mukherjee, Shahid Karim Oct 2016

A Snapshot Of The Microbiome Of Ambylomma Tuberculatum Ticks Infesting The Gopher Tortoise, An Endangered Species, Khemraj Budachetri, Daniel Lyle Gaillard, Jaclyn Bo Williams, Nabanita Mukherjee, Shahid Karim

Faculty Publications

The gopher tortoise tick, Amblyomma tuberculatum, has a unique relationship with the gopher tortoise, Gopherus polyphemus, found in sandy habitats across the southeastern United States. We aimed to understand the overall bacterial community associated with A. tuberculatum while also focusing on spotted fever group Rickettsia. These tortoises in the Southern Mississippi region are a federally threatened species; therefore, we have carefully trapped the tortoises and removed the species-specific ticks attached to them. Genomic DNA was extracted from individual ticks and used to explore overall bacterial load using pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA on 454-sequencing platform. The spotted fever group …

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The Small Gtpase Mosec4 Is Involved In Vegetative Development And Pathogenicity By Regulating The Extracellular Protein Secretion In Magnaporthe Oryzae, Huakun Zheng, Simiao Chen, Xiaofeng Chen, Shuyan Liu, Xie Dang, Chengdong Yang, Martha C. Giraldo, Ely Oliveira-Garcia, Jie Zhou, Zonghua Wang, Barbara Valent Sep 2016

The Small Gtpase Mosec4 Is Involved In Vegetative Development And Pathogenicity By Regulating The Extracellular Protein Secretion In Magnaporthe Oryzae, Huakun Zheng, Simiao Chen, Xiaofeng Chen, Shuyan Liu, Xie Dang, Chengdong Yang, Martha C. Giraldo, Ely Oliveira-Garcia, Jie Zhou, Zonghua Wang, Barbara Valent

Faculty Publications

The Rab GTPase proteins play important roles in the membrane trafficking, and consequently protein secretion and development of eukaryotic organisms. However, little is known about the function of Rab GTPases in Magnaporthe oryzae. To further explore the function of Rab GTPases, we deleted the ortholog of the yeast Sec4p protein in M. oryzae, namely MoSEC4. The ΔMosec4 mutant is defective in polarized growth and conidiation, and it displays decreased appressorium turgor pressure and attenuated pathogenicity. Notably, the biotrophic invasive hyphae produced in rice cells are more bulbous and compressed in the ΔMosec4 mutant. Further studies showed that deletion of the …

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Different Roads Lead To Rome: Integrative Taxonomic Approaches Lead To The Discovery Of Two New Lizard Lineages In The Liolaemus Montanus Group (Squamata: Liolaemidae), Cesar Aguilar, Perry L. Wood Jr., Mark C. Belk, Mike H. Duff, Jack W. Sites Jr. Sep 2016

Different Roads Lead To Rome: Integrative Taxonomic Approaches Lead To The Discovery Of Two New Lizard Lineages In The Liolaemus Montanus Group (Squamata: Liolaemidae), Cesar Aguilar, Perry L. Wood Jr., Mark C. Belk, Mike H. Duff, Jack W. Sites Jr.

Faculty Publications

Integrative taxonomy (IT) is becoming a preferred approach to delimiting species boundaries by including different empirical criteria. IT methods can be divided into two types of procedures both of which use multiple kinds of evidence: step-by-step approaches test hypotheses by sequential evaluation in a hypothetic-deductive framework, while model-based procedures delimit groups based on statistical information criteria. In this study we used a step-by-step approach and a Gaussian clustering (GC) method to test species boundaries in the northernmost species of the Liolaemus montanus group. We used different methods based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data, morphological measures and niche envelope …

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A New Class Of Allosteric Hiv-1 Integrase Inhibitors Identified By Crstallographic Fragment Screening Of The Catalytic Core Domain, Disha Patel, Janet Antwi, Pratibha C. Koneru, Erik Serrao, Stefano Forli, Jacques J. Kessl, Lei Feng, Nanjie Deng, Ronald M. Levy, James R. Fuchs, Arthur J. Olson, Alan N. Engelman, Joseph D. Bauman, Mamuka Kvaratskhelia, Eddy Arnold Sep 2016

A New Class Of Allosteric Hiv-1 Integrase Inhibitors Identified By Crstallographic Fragment Screening Of The Catalytic Core Domain, Disha Patel, Janet Antwi, Pratibha C. Koneru, Erik Serrao, Stefano Forli, Jacques J. Kessl, Lei Feng, Nanjie Deng, Ronald M. Levy, James R. Fuchs, Arthur J. Olson, Alan N. Engelman, Joseph D. Bauman, Mamuka Kvaratskhelia, Eddy Arnold

Faculty Publications

HIV-1 integrase (IN) is essential for virus replication and represents an important multifunctional therapeutic target. Recently discovered quinoline-based allosteric IN inhibitors (ALLINIs) potently impair HIV-1 replication and are currently in clinical trials. ALLINIs exhibit a multimodal mechanism of action by inducing aberrant IN multimerization during virion morphogenesis and by competing with IN for binding to its cognate cellular cofactor LEDGF/p75 during early steps of HIV-1 infection. However, quinoline-based ALLINIs impose a low genetic barrier for the evolution of resistant phenotypes, which highlights a need for discovery of second-generation inhibitors. Using crystallographic screening of a library of 971 fragments against the …

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Phylogenetics Of Extant And Fossil Pinaceae: Methods For Increasing Topological Stability, David S. Gernandt, Garth Holman, Christopher Campbell, Matthew Parks, Sarah Mathews, Linda A. Raubeson, Aaron Liston, Ruth A. Stockey, Gar W. Rothwell Sep 2016

Phylogenetics Of Extant And Fossil Pinaceae: Methods For Increasing Topological Stability, David S. Gernandt, Garth Holman, Christopher Campbell, Matthew Parks, Sarah Mathews, Linda A. Raubeson, Aaron Liston, Ruth A. Stockey, Gar W. Rothwell

Faculty Publications

© 2016, Canadian Science Publishing. All rights reserved. Relationships of living and fossil Pinaceae were inferred using parsimony and Bayesian inference of morphological characters and plastid and nuclear DNA sequences. When considering extant taxa only, adding molecular to morphological characters resulted in markedly increased resolution and branch support compared with analysis of morphology alone. Including 45 fossil taxa resulted in drastically decreased resolution in morphology-based consensus trees. We evaluated the effect on branch support and resolution of including DNA sequences, deleting fossils lacking information for cone scale apices and seeds, using reduced consensus methods, and using implied weighting, and found …

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Mechanosensory Signaling As A Potential Mode Of Communication During Social Interactions In Fishes, Julie M. Butler, Karen P. Maruska Sep 2016

Mechanosensory Signaling As A Potential Mode Of Communication During Social Interactions In Fishes, Julie M. Butler, Karen P. Maruska

Faculty Publications

© 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. Signals produced during social interactions convey crucial information about the sender's identity, quality, reproductive state and social status. Fishes can detect near-body water movements via the mechanosensory lateral line system, and this sense is used during several common fish behaviors, such as schooling, rheotaxis and predator-prey interactions. In addition, many fish behaviors, such as aggressive lateral displays and reproductive body quivers, involve fin and body motions that generate water movements that can be detected by the lateral line system of nearby fish. This mechanosensory system is well studied for its role …

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Environmental Conditions Of 2 River Drainages Into The Northern Gulf Of Mexico During Successful Hatching Of Alabama Shad (Alosa Alabamae), Paul F. Mickle, Jacob F. Schaefer, Susan B. Adams, Brian R. Kreiser, William T. Slack Sep 2016

Environmental Conditions Of 2 River Drainages Into The Northern Gulf Of Mexico During Successful Hatching Of Alabama Shad (Alosa Alabamae), Paul F. Mickle, Jacob F. Schaefer, Susan B. Adams, Brian R. Kreiser, William T. Slack

Faculty Publications

In recent years, the Alabama shad (Alosa alabamae) has experienced dramatic declines and extirpations from portions of its native range. Habitat degradation and barriers to migration are considered contributing factors to contraction in the distributional range this species. To identify conditions during successful spawning, river temperatures and discharges in 2 drainages of the northern Gulf of Mexico (the Apalachicola and Pascagoula rivers) were characterized during successful hatching “windows.” Sampling during 2005–2009 yielded 400 juvenile Alabama shad of which 261 were aged from counts of rings on sagittal otoliths. Results from logistic regression revealed that successful spawning coincided with increases in …

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Condition Of Larval Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) Relative To Environmental Variability And The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Frank J. Hernandez Jr., J.E. Filbrun, J. Fang, John Timothy Ransom Sep 2016

Condition Of Larval Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) Relative To Environmental Variability And The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Frank J. Hernandez Jr., J.E. Filbrun, J. Fang, John Timothy Ransom

Faculty Publications

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill(DWHOS)spatially and temporally overlapped with the spawning of many fish species, including Red Snapper, one of the most economically important reef fish in the Gulf of Mexico. To investigate potential impacts of the DWHOS on larval Red Snapper, data from a long-term ichthyoplankton survey off the coast of Alabama were used to examine: (1)larval abundances among pre-impact (2007–2009), impact(2010), and post-impact (2011, 2013) periods; (2) proxies for larval condition (size-adjusted morphometric relationships and dry weight) among the same periods; and (3) the effects of background environmental variation on larval condition. We found that larval Red Snapper …

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Goggatomy: A Method For Opening Small Cuticular Compartments In Arthropods For Physiological Experiments, Alan R. Kay, Davide Raccuglia, Jon Scholte, Elene Sivan-Loukianova, Chirstopher A. Barwacz, Steven R. Armstrong, C. Allan Guymon, Michael N. Nitabach, Daniel F. Eberl Sep 2016

Goggatomy: A Method For Opening Small Cuticular Compartments In Arthropods For Physiological Experiments, Alan R. Kay, Davide Raccuglia, Jon Scholte, Elene Sivan-Loukianova, Chirstopher A. Barwacz, Steven R. Armstrong, C. Allan Guymon, Michael N. Nitabach, Daniel F. Eberl

Faculty Publications

Most sense organs of arthropods are ensconced in small exoskeletal compartments that hinder direct access to plasma membranes. We have developed a method for exposing live sensory and supporting cells in such structures. The technique uses a viscous light cured resin to embed and support the structure, which is then sliced with a sharp blade. We term the procedure a “goggatomy,” from the Khoisan word for a bug, gogga. To demonstrate the utility of the method we show that it can be used to expose the auditory chordotonal organs in the second antennal segment and the olfactory receptor neurons …

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Dispersal Distance Determines The Exponent Of The Spatial Taylor's Power Law, Pei Jian Shi, Hardev S. Sandhu, Gadi V.P. Reddy Sep 2016

Dispersal Distance Determines The Exponent Of The Spatial Taylor's Power Law, Pei Jian Shi, Hardev S. Sandhu, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

The equation describing a power-law relationship between the mean and variance of population abundance in space or time is known as Taylor's power law (TPL), initially observed in samples of insects. Factors determining the TPL exponent are of particular concern to ecologists because the observations of the exponent usually range 1-2. Recent studies have suggested that TPL is caused solely by statistical artifacts rather than biological processes, with the corresponding statistical models lacking linkages to explicit population demography. In this study, we used two special forms of the Neyman-Scott cluster point process to study the effect of offspring dispersal distance …

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