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Characterization Of Lipid Rafts In Human Platelets Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: A Pilot Study, Joshua F. Ceñido, Boris Itin, Ruth E. Stark, Yung-Yu Huang, Maria A. Oquendo, J. John Mann, M. Elizabeth Sublette

Publications and Research

Lipid microdomains (‘lipid rafts’) are plasma membrane subregions, enriched in cholesterol and glycosphingolipids, which participate dynamically in cell signaling and molecular trafficking operations. One strategy for the study of the physicochemical properties of lipid rafts in model membrane systems has been the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), but until now this spectroscopic method has not been considered a clinically relevant tool. We performed a proof-of-concept study to test the feasibility of using NMR to study lipid rafts in human tissues. Platelets were selected as a cost-effective and minimally invasive model system in which lipid rafts have previously been studied …

Mirnas Associated With Prostate Cancer Risk And Progression, Hung N. Luu, Hui-Yi Lin, Karina Dalsgaard Sorensen, Olorunseun O. Ogunwobi, Nagi Kumar, Ganna Chornokur, Catherine Phelan, Dominique Jones, Lacreis Kidd, Jyotsna Batra, Kosj Yamoah, Anders Berglund, Robert J. Rounbehler, Mihi Yang, Sang Haak Lee, Nahyeon Kang, Seung Joon Kim, Jong Y. Park, Giuliano Di Pietro

Publications and Research

Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy among men in the US. Though considerable improvement in the diagnosis of prostate cancer has been achieved in the past decade, predicting disease outcome remains a major clinical challenge. Recent expression profiling studies in prostate cancer suggest microRNAs (miRNAs) may serve as potential biomarkers for prostate cancer risk and disease progression. miRNAs comprise a large family of about 22-nucleotide-long non-protein coding RNAs, regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally and participate in the regulation of numerous cellular processes. In this review, we discuss the current status of miRNA in studies evaluating the disease progression of prostate …

Effects Of Cetp Inhibition With Anacetrapib On Metabolism Of Vldl-Tg And Plasma Apolipoproteins C-Ii, C-Iii, And E, John S. Millar, Michael E. Lassman, Tiffany Thomas, Rajasekhar Ramakrishnan, Patricia Jumes, Richard L. Dunbar, Emil M. Degoma, Amanda L. Baer, Wahida Karmally, Daniel S. Donovan, Hashmi Rafeek, John A. Wagner, Stephen Holleran, Joseph Obunike, Yang Liu, Soumia Aoujil, Taylor Standiford, David E. Gutstein, Henry N. Ginsberg, Daniel J. Rader, Gissette Reyes-Soffer

Publications and Research

Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) mediates the transfer of HDL cholesteryl esters for triglyceride (TG) in VLDL/LDL. CETP inhibition, with anacetrapib, increases HDL-cholesterol, reduces LDL-cholesterol, and lowers TG levels. This study describes the mechanisms responsible for TG lowering by examining the kinetics of VLDL-TG, apoC-II, apoC-III, and apoE. Mildly hypercholesterolemic subjects were randomized to either placebo (N = 10) or atorvastatin 20 mg/qd (N = 29) for 4 weeks (period 1) followed by 8 weeks of anacetrapib, 100 mg/qd (period 2). Following each period, subjects underwent stable isotope metabolic studies to determine the fractional catabolic rates (FCRs) and production rates …

What Is Philosophy?, Howard S. Ruttenberg

Publications and Research

The speaker relates philosophy to and distinguishes it from all the arts and sciences in terms of its breadth and depth. Philosophy thinks about things, and thoughts, and words and actions (“words and deeds”, in Cicero’s phrase). There are examples of philosophers who have reduced all three of them to one and of philosophers who have kept them distinct. There have been revolutions in philosophy, responsive to great changes in cultural life, in science and politics, and in reaction against established traditions within philosophy. In modern times, there has been a metaphysical revolution against the Aristotelian schoolmen, an epistemological revolution …

The Effect Of Object-Centered Instructions In Cartesian And Polar Coordinates On Saccade Vector, Jay A. Edelman, Alexa M. Mieses, Kira Konnova, David Shiu

Publications and Research

Express saccades (ES) are the most reflexive saccadic eye movements, with very short reaction times of 70– 110 ms. It is likely that ES have the shortest saccade reaction times (SRTs) possible given the known physiological and anatomical delays present in sensory and motor systems. Nevertheless, it has been demonstrated that a vector displacement of ES to spatially extended stimuli can be influenced by spatial cognition. Edelman, Kristjansson, and Nakayama (2007) found that when two horizontally separated visual stimuli appear at a random location, the spatial vector, but not the reaction time, of human ES is strongly influenced by an …

Isokinetic Dynamometry And 1rm Tests Produce Conflicting Results For Assessing Alterations In Muscle Strength, Paulo Gentil, Fabricio Boscolo Del Vecchio, Antonio Paoli, Brad J. Schoenfeld, Martim Bottaro

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to compare strength gains in the lower limbs, assessed by one maximum repetition (1RM) and isokinetic peak torque (PT), in young men undergoing a resistance training (RT) program. Twenty-seven young men performed resistance training twice a week for 11 weeks. Training involved two exercises for the lower body, two for the upper body and one for the midsection performed with three sets of 8-12 repetitions to momentary muscle failure. Before and after the training period, participants performed the 1RM test in the 45° leg press and knee extension PT in isokinetic dynamometry. The Pearson …

How History As Mystery Reveals Historical Thinking: A Look At Two Accounts Of Finding Typhoid Mary, Myra Zarnowski, Susan Turkel

Publications and Research

While the words clue, evidence, and detective might not be the first words you associate with history, the idea of history as a mystery to be solved by historian-detectives has a substantial and lively past. That is because the analogy of a historian to a detective solving a mystery is a strong one. Both historians and detectives try to answer the same question: What happened? Both work with evidence from the past to create a plausible narrative using only fragments left behind. Both engage in inferencing as a means of learning from evidence. Both are problem solvers.

In this article, …

Gender Bias In Academe: An Annotated Bibliography Of Important Recent Studies, Danica Savonick, Cathy Davidson

Publications and Research

An annotated bibliography of studies examining the role of gender bias in hiring, promotion and tenure in higher education.

Conserved Patterns Of Integrated Developmental Plasticity In A Group Of Polyphenic Tropical Butterflies, Erik Van Bergen, Dave Osbaldeston, Ullasa Kondandaramaiah, Oskar Brattström, Kwaku Aduse-Poku, Paul M. Brakefield

Publications and Research

Background: Developmental plasticity is thought to have profound macro-evolutionary effects, for example, by increasing the probability of establishment in new environments and subsequent divergence into independently evolving lineages. In contrast to plasticity optimized for individual traits, phenotypic integration, which enables a concerted response of plastic traits to environmental variability, may affect the rate of local adaptation by constraining independent responses of traits to selection. Using a comparative framework, this study explores the evolution of reaction norms for a variety of life history and morphological traits across five related species of mycalesine butterflies from the Old World tropics.

Results: Our data …

Osteosarcoma Cell Proliferation And Survival Requires Mglur5 Receptor Activity And Is Blocked By Riluzole, Sally Liao, Yuleisy Ruiz, Hira Gulzar, Zarina Yelskaya, Lyes Ait Taouit, Murielle Houssou, Trisha Jaikaran, Yuriy Schvarts, Kristina Kozlitina, Upal Basu-Roy, Alka Mansukhani, Shahana S. Mahajan

Publications and Research

Osteosarcomas are malignant tumors of bone, most commonly seen in children and adolescents. Despite advances in modern medicine, the poor survival rate of metastatic osteosarcoma has not improved in two decades. In the present study we have investigated the effect of Riluzole on a human and mouse metastatic osteosarcoma cells. We show that LM7 cells secrete glutamate in the media and that mGluR5 receptors are required for the proliferation of LM7 cells. Riluzole, which is known to inhibit glutamate release, inhibits proliferation, induces apoptosis and prevents migration of LM7 cells. This is also seen with Fenobam, a specific blocker of …

Gait Changes In A Line Of Mice Artificially Selected For Longer Limbs, Leah M. Sparrow, Emily Pellattt, Sabrina S. Yu, David A. Raichlen, Herman Pontzer, Campbell Rolian

Publications and Research

In legged terrestrial locomotion, the duration of stance phase, i.e., when limbs are in contact with the substrate, is positively correlated with limb length, and negatively correlated with the metabolic cost of transport. These relationships are well documented at the interspecific level, across a broad range of body sizes and travel speeds. However, such relationships are harder to evaluate within species (i.e., where natural selection operates), largely for practical reasons, including low population variance in limb length, and the presence of confounding factors such as body mass, or training. Here, we compared spatiotemporal kinematics of gait in Longshanks, a long-legged …

Remodeling Brain Activity By Repetitive Cervicothoracic Transspinal Stimulation After Human Spinal Cord Injury, Lynda M. Murray, Maria Knikou

Publications and Research

Interventions that can produce targeted brain plasticity after human spinal cord injury (SCI) are needed for restoration of impaired movement in these patients. In this study, we tested the effects of repetitive cervicothoracic transspinal stimulation in one person with cervical motor incomplete SCI on cortical and corticospinal excitability, which were assessed via transcranial magnetic stimulation with paired and single pulses, respectively. We found that repetitive cervicothoracic transspinal stimulation potentiated intracortical facilitation in flexor and extensor wrist muscles, recovered intracortical inhibition in the more impaired wrist flexor muscle, increased corticospinal excitability bilaterally, and improved voluntary muscle strength. These effects may have …

Diversity More Than Race, Gender In Higher Ed., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Most people when talking about diversity think

of matters revolving around race and gender, and

while those are obvious and important topics, the

fact of the matter is that the definition of diversity

is much larger.

Today diversity is seen in two dimensions.

The first one is what is called inherent diversity,

the diversity that is beyond people’s control.

Obviously, these issues include race and gender,

but also include national origin, age, sexual orientation,

disability, religious affiliation and socioeconomic

status. Certainly, you can change your

religious affiliation or socioeconomic status over

time, but being raised in a particular religion or …

Expression, Purification, And Monitoring Of Conformational Changes Of Hcb2 Tmh67h8 In Different Membrane-Mimetic Lipid Mixtures Using Circular Dichroism And Nmr Techniques, Elvis K. Tiburu, Jianqin Zhuang, Heidimarie N. A. Fleischer, Patrick K. Arthur, Gordon A. Awandare

Publications and Research

This work was intended to develop self-assembly lipids for incorporating G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) in order to improve the success rate for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) structural elucidation. We hereby report the expression and purification of uniformly 15N-labeled human cannabinoid receptor-2 domain in insect cell media. The domain was refolded by screening several membrane mimetic environments. Different q ratios of isotropic bicelles were screened for solubilizing transmembrane helix 6, 7 and 8 (TMH67H8). As the concentration of dimyristoylphosphocholine (DMPC) was increased such that the q ratio was between 0.16 and 0.42, there was less crowding in the cross peaks …

Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (Ccase): A New Method For Simulating Future Climate In Seasonally Snow-Covered Ecosystems, Pamela H. Templer, Andrew B. Reinmann, Rebecca Sanders-Demott, Patrick O. Sorensen, Stephanie M. Juice, Francis Bowles, Laura E. Sofen, Jamie L. Harrison, Ian Halm, Lindsey Rustad, Mary E. Martin, Nicholas Grant

Publications and Research

Climate models project an increase in mean annual air temperatures and a reduction in the depth and duration of winter snowpack for many mid and high latitude and high elevation seasonally snow-covered ecosystems over the next century. The combined effects of these changes in climate will lead to warmer soils in the growing season and increased frequency of soil freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs) in winter due to the loss of a continuous, insulating snowpack. Previous experiments have warmed soils or removed snow via shoveling or with shelters to mimic projected declines in the winter snowpack. To our knowledge, no experiment has …

Plasmid Diversity And Phylogenetic Consistency In The Lyme Disease Agent Borrelia Burgdorferi, Sherwood R. Casjens, Eddie B. Gilcrease, Marija Vujadinovic, Emmanuel F. Mongodin, Benjamin J. Luft, Steven E. Schutzer, Claire M. Fraser, Wei-Gang Qiu

Publications and Research

Background: Bacteria from the genus Borrelia are known to harbor numerous linear and circular plasmids. We report here a comparative analysis of the nucleotide sequences of 236 plasmids present in fourteen independent isolates of the Lyme disease agent B. burgdorferi.

Results: We have sequenced the genomes of 14 B. burgdorferi sensu stricto isolates that carry a total of 236 plasmids. These individual isolates carry between seven and 23 plasmids. Their chromosomes, the cp26 and cp32 circular plasmids, as well as the lp54 linear plasmid, are quite evolutionarily stable; however, the remaining plasmids have undergone numerous non-homologous and often duplicative recombination …

A Mendelian Randomization Study Of The Effect Of Calcium On Coronary Artery Disease, Myocardial Infarction And Their Risk Factors, Lin Xu, Shi Lin Lin, C. Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest calcium could have adverse effects on cardiovascular disease, although these findings are controversial. To clarify, we assessed whether people with genetically higher calcium had a higher risk of coronary artery disease (CAD), myocardial infarction (MI) and their risk factors. We used a two-sample Mendelian randomization study. We identified genetic variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)) that independently contributed to serum calcium at genome-wide significance which we applied to large extensively genotyped studies of CAD, MI, diabetes, lipids, glycaemic traits and adiposity to obtain unconfounded estimates, with body mass index (BMI) as a control outcome. …

Body Size And Lower Limb Posture During Walking In Humans, Martin Hora, Libor Soumar, Herman Pontzer, Vladimír Sládek

Publications and Research

We test whether locomotor posture is associated with body mass and lower limb length in humans and explore how body size and posture affect net joint moments during walking. We acquired gait data for 24 females and 25 males using a three-dimensional motion capture system and pressure-measuring insoles. We employed the general linear model and commonality analysis to assess the independent effect of body mass and lower limb length on flexion angles at the hip, knee, and ankle while controlling for sex and velocity. In addition, we used inverse dynamics to model the effect of size and posture on net …

Mechanisms And Effects Of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, James Giordano, Marom Bikson, Emily S. Kappenman, Vincent P. Clark, H. Branch Coslett, Michael R. Hamblin, Roy Hamilton, Ryan Jankord, Walter J. Kozumbo, R. Andrew Mckinley, Michael A. Nitsche, J. Patrick Reilly, Jessica Richardson, Rachel Wurzman, Edward Calabrese

Publications and Research

The US Air Force Office of Scientific Research convened a meeting of researchers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, engineering, and medicine to discuss most pressing issues facing ongoing research in the field of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and related techniques. In this study, we present opinions prepared by participants of the meeting, focusing on the most promising areas of research, immediate and future goals for the field, and the potential for hormesis theory to inform tDCS research. Scientific, medical, and ethical considerations support the ongoing testing of tDCS in healthy and clinical populations, provided best protocols are used …

Egg Discrimination Along A Gradient Of Natural Variation In Eggshell Coloration, Daniel Hanley, Tomáš Grim, Branislav Igic, Peter Samaš, Analía V. López, Matthew D. Shawkey, Mark E. Hauber

Publications and Research

Accurate recognition of salient cues is critical for adaptive responses, but the underlying sensory and cognitive processes are often poorly understood. For example, hosts of avian brood parasites have long been assumed to reject foreign eggs from their nests based on the total degree of dissimilarity in colour to their own eggs, regardless of the foreign eggs’ colours. We tested hosts’ responses to gradients of natural (blue-green to brown) and artificial (green to purple) egg colours, and demonstrate that hosts base rejection decisions on both the direction and degree of colour dissimilarity along the natural, but not artificial, gradient of …

Impact Of Cannabis Use On Treatment Outcomes Among Adults Receiving Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment For Ptsd And Substance Use Disorders, Lesia M. Ruglass, Alina Shevorykin, Vanja Radoncic, Kathryn M. Z. Smith, Philip H. Smith, Isaac R. Galatzer-Levy, Santiago Papini, Denise A. Hien

Publications and Research

Background: Research has demonstrated a strong link between trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUDs) in general and cannabis use disorders in particular. Yet, few studies have examined the impact of cannabis use on treatment outcomes for individuals with co-occurring PTSD and SUDs. Methods: Participants were 136 individuals who received cognitive-behavioral therapies for co-occurring PTSD and SUD. Multivariate regressions were utilized to examine the associations between baseline cannabis use and end-of-treatment outcomes. Multilevel linear growth models were fit to the data to examine the cross-lagged associations between weekly cannabis use and weekly PTSD symptom severity and primary …

A Novel Microrna-1207-3p/Fndc1/Fn1/Ar Regulatory Pathway In Prostate Cancer, Dibash K. Das, Olorunseun O. Ogunwobi

Publications and Research

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common cause of cancer-specific deaths in the U.S. Unfortunately, the underlying molecular mechanisms for its development and progression remain unclear. Studies have established that microRNAs (miRNAs) are dysregulated in PCa. The intron-derived microRNA-1207-3p (miR-1207-3p) is encoded at the non-protein coding gene locus PVT1 on the 8q24 human chromosomal region, an established PCa susceptibility locus. However, miR-1207-3p in PCa had not previously been investigated. Therefore, we explored if miR-1207-3p plays any regulatory role in PCa. We discovered that miR-1207-3p is significantly underexpressed in PCa cell lines in comparison to normal prostate epithelial cells, and …

Rapid Bactericidal Activity Of An Amphiphilic Polyacrylate Terpolymer System Comprised Of Same-Centered Comonomers With 2-Carbon And 6- Carbon Spacer Arms And An Uncharged Repeat Unit, Kamia Punia, Ashish Punia, Kaushiki Chatterjee, Sumit Mukherjee, Jimmie E. Fata, Probal Banerjee, Krishnaswami Raja, Nan-Loh Yang

Publications and Research

The global health threat of antimicrobial resistance has created a pressing need to develop practical alternatives to conventional antibiotic agents. Peptide mimetic synthetic amphiphilic polymers are known to non-specifically disrupt the bacterial cell surface thus leading to highly hindered bacterial resistance development. We investigated the antibacterial activities of a terpolymer macromolecular architecture with a combination of 6- carbon and 2-carbon spacer arms (distance from polymer backbone to pendent cationic center) interspersed with counits with hydrophobic side groups. A random copolymer with a combination of 6-carbon spacer arm repeat units (60 mol%) and 2-carbon spacer arm (40 mol%) units is moderately …

Gosnell Studies And Communicates Ecological Concerns, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Scientists who study environmental problems know that the more you work in the field, the more insight you gain into how to solve problems. In other words, the more field experience you have, the deeper your understanding of nature.

One scientist who has had a lot of field experience is Dr. Stephen Gosnell, and his interest in the environment began when he was still a child. “I had interest really early. I grew up in rural South Carolina in a very small town called Landrum. I was outside on a regular basis, playing in the streams and creeks around me,” …

Protein Calorie Malnutrition, Nutritional Intervention And Personalized Cancer Care, Anju Gangadharan, Sung-Eun Choi, Ahmed Hassan, Nehad M. Ayoub, Gina Durante, Sakshi Balwani, Young Hee Kim, Andrew Pecora, Andre Goy, K. Stephen Suh

Publications and Research

Cancer patients often experience weight loss caused by protein calorie malnutrition (PCM) during the course of the disease or treatment. PCM is expressed as severe if the patient has two or more of the following characteristics: obvious significant muscle wasting, loss of subcutaneous fat; nutritional intake of <50% of recommended intake for 2 weeks or more; bedridden or otherwise significantly reduced functional capacity; weight loss of >2% in 1 week, 5% in 1 month, or 7.5% in 3 months. Cancer anorexiacachexia syndrome (CACS) is a multifactorial condition of advanced PCM associated with underlying illness (in this case cancer) and is characterized by loss of muscle with or without loss of fat mass. Cachexia is defined as weight loss of …

Fibronectin And Androgen Receptor Expression Data In Prostate Cancer Obtained From A Rna-Sequencing Bioinformatics Analysis, Dibash K. Das, Thahmina Ali, Konstantinos Krampis, Olorunseun O. Ogunwobi

Publications and Research

Prostate cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed male cancer in the world. The molecular mechanisms underlying its development and progression are still unclear. Here we show analysis of a prostate cancer RNA-sequencing dataset that was originally generated by Ren et al. [3] from the prostate tumor and adjacent normal tissues of 14 patients. The data presented here was analyzed using our RNA-sequencing bioinformatics analysis pipeline implemented on the bioinformatics web platform, Galaxy. The relative expression of fibronectin (FN1) and the androgen receptor (AR) were calculated in fragments per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads, and represented in FPKM …

Inukshuks: A Librarian's Narrative, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

The article offers the author's insights on the Inukshuks, landmarks in the shape of human beings built with rocks by Inuit people, in Newfoundland and Labrador. Topics mentioned include the Inukshuks that are considered signs of humanity to show the direction for lost or new travelers, his librarian job at College of the North Atlantic, and the library work management. Also mentioned are the workflow management, his career development, and the importance communication in librarians.

A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial Of Different Mobile Messaging Interventions For Problem Drinking, Frederick Muench, Katherine Van Stolk-Cooke, Alexis Kuerbis, Gertraud Stadler, Amit Baumel, Sijing Shao, James R. Mckay, Jon Morgenstern

Publications and Research

Introduction
Recent evidence suggests that text messaging may help to reduce problem drinking as an extension to in-person services, but very little is known about the effectiveness of remote messaging on problem drinking as a stand-alone intervention, or how different types of messages may improve drinking outcomes in those seeking to moderate their alcohol consumption.

Methods
We conducted an exploratory, single-blind randomized controlled pilot study comparing four different types of alcohol reduction-themed text messages sent daily to weekly drink self-tracking texts in order to determine their impact on drinking outcomes over a 12-week period in 152 participants (≈ 30 per …

Evolution Of Complex Target Selex To Identify Aptamers Against Mammalian Cell-Surface Antigens, Prabodhika R. Mallikaratchy

Publications and Research

The demand has increased for sophisticated molecular tools with improved detection limits. Such molecules should be simple in structure, yet stable enough for clinical applications. Nucleic acid aptamers (NAAs) represent a class of molecules able to meet this demand. In particular, aptamers, a class of small nucleic acid ligands that are composed of single-stranded modified/unmodified RNA/DNA molecules, can be evolved from a complex library using Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (SELEX) against almost any molecule. Since its introduction in 1990, in stages, SELEX technology has itself undergone several modifications, improving selection and broadening the repertoire of targets. This …

Identification, Validation, And Targeting Of The Mutant P53- Parp-Mcm Chromatin Axis In Triple Negative Breast Cancer, Wei-Gang Qiu, Alla Polotskaia, Gu Xiao, Lia Di, Yuhan Zhao, Wenwei Hu, John Philip, Ronald C. Hendrickson, Jill Bargonetti

Publications and Research

Over 80% of triple negative breast cancers express mutant p53. Mutant p53 often gains oncogenic function suggesting that triple negative breast cancers may be driven by p53 protein type. To determine the chromatin targets of this gain-of-function mutant p53 we used inducible knockdown of endogenous gain-of-function mtp53 in MDA-MB-468 cells in conjunction with stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture and subcellular fractionation. We sequenced over 70,000 total peptides for each corresponding reciprocal data set and were able to identify 3010 unique cytoplasmic fraction proteins and 3403 unique chromatin fraction proteins. The present proteomics experiment corroborated our previous …