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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Molecular Markers Within And Beyond Viburnum: A Single Set Of Ssrs For An Immense Genus, Trinity Paige Hamm Dec 2021

Molecular Markers Within And Beyond Viburnum: A Single Set Of Ssrs For An Immense Genus, Trinity Paige Hamm

Masters Theses

Comprised of more than 160 species, Viburnum is the largest genus in the Viburnaceae (formerly Adoxaceae) alongside Adoxa and Sambucus. The native range of Viburnum species spans much of the Northern Hemisphere and extends into the mountains of South America and Southeastern Asia. Their wide geographic range has made Viburnum particularly interesting to phylogeographers and phylogeneticists. This diverse genus is also horticulturally valuable with varying traits such as fragrance, fruit color, and bud and inflorescence form. There is sufficient morphological diversity in the genus for there to be more than 70 species and intraspecific hybrids in cultivation, and in …


Metabolic Modeling Of Cystic Fibrosis Airway Microbiota From Patient Samples, Arsh Vyas Oct 2021

Metabolic Modeling Of Cystic Fibrosis Airway Microbiota From Patient Samples, Arsh Vyas

Masters Theses

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder, found with higher prevalence in the Caucasian population, affecting > 30,000 individuals in the United States and > 70,000 worldwide. Due to the astoundingly high rate of mortality among CF patients being attributed to respiratory failure brought on by chronic bacterial infections and subsequent airway inflammation, there has been a lot of focus on systematically analyzing CF lung airway communities. While it is observed traditionally that Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most threatening and persistent CF colonizer due to high antibiotic resistance, recent studies have elicited the roles of other pathogens and it has been widely …


Structure-Function Studies Of The Trypanosome Mitochondrial Replication Protein Polib, Raveen Armstrong Oct 2021

Structure-Function Studies Of The Trypanosome Mitochondrial Replication Protein Polib, Raveen Armstrong

Masters Theses

Trypanosoma brucei and related protists are distinguished from all other eukaryotes by an unusual mitochondrial genome known as kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) that is a catenated network composed of minicircles and maxicircles. Replication of this single nucleoid involves a release, replicate, and reattach mechanism for the thousands of catenated minicircles and requires at least three DNA polymerase (POLIB, POLIC and POLID) with similarity to E. coli DNA polymerase I. Like other proofreading replicative DNA polymerases, POLIB has both an annotated polymerase domain and an exonuclease domain. Predictive modelling of POLIB indicates that it has the canonical right hand …


Factors Influencing Primate Hair Microbiome Diversity, Catherine Kitrinos Sep 2021

Factors Influencing Primate Hair Microbiome Diversity, Catherine Kitrinos

Masters Theses

Primate hair is both a substrate upon which essential social interactions occur and an important host-pathogen interface. As commensal microbes provide important immune functions for their hosts, understanding the microbial diversity in primate hair could provide insight into primate immunity and disease transmission. While studies of human hair and skin microbiomes show differences in microbial communities across body regions, little is known about the nonhuman primate hair microbiome. In this study, we collected hair samples (n=159) from 8 body regions across 12 nonhuman primate species housed at 3 US institutions to examine 1) the diversity and composition of the primate …


Pedigree And Molecular Assessment Of Relatedness In A Captive Chimpanzee Population, Francesca Golus Aug 2021

Pedigree And Molecular Assessment Of Relatedness In A Captive Chimpanzee Population, Francesca Golus

Masters Theses

As a crucial component of biodiversity, genetic diversity contributes to variability among individuals, allowing populations of endangered species to be resilient in the face of changing environmental conditions. Zoological institutions have become a cornerstone of conservation efforts and a refuge for endangered species given threats imposed on wild populations by climate change, habitat fragmentation and degradation, and overexploitation. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are an endangered species experiencing drastic population decline in the wild, yet are common residents in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. To sustain long-term, genetically viable populations of species of concern, zoos use studbooks and paternity testing to …


Evaluating The Winter Diet Of A Reintroduced Herd Of Elk In The Cumberland Mountains, Tennessee, Using Next-Generation Sequencing Techniques, Dailee L. Metts Aug 2021

Evaluating The Winter Diet Of A Reintroduced Herd Of Elk In The Cumberland Mountains, Tennessee, Using Next-Generation Sequencing Techniques, Dailee L. Metts

Masters Theses

A distinct subspecies of elk (Cervus canadensis), the North American elk (C. canadensis canadensis), once inhabited portions of the southeastern United States, including Tennessee, until their extirpation in the mid 1800s. From 2000 to 2008, 201 Manitoban elk were reintroduced on the North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area (NCWMA). A year-long food habits study using histological analysis of plant material from feces was completed for the NCWMA elk from 2003 to 2004 and has since aided managers in their landscape planning. Since then, more elk have been released onto the area, food plots have been established throughout …


Genome-Wide Characterization Of Lateral Organ Boundaries Domain Genes In Sunflower (Helianthus Annuus L.), Saleh M. Aljurbua Jan 2021

Genome-Wide Characterization Of Lateral Organ Boundaries Domain Genes In Sunflower (Helianthus Annuus L.), Saleh M. Aljurbua

Masters Theses

Lateral Organ Boundaries (LBD) gene family encodes transcription factors found only in plants with essential roles in growth, development, and response to biotic and abiotic factors. The sunflower (Helianthus annuus L., Asteraceae family) LBD genes were studied using different in silico and phylogenetic approaches including four major steps: gene identification, phylogenic analysis, structural analysis, and expression analysis. Sixty-four sunflower LBD genes (HaLBDs) were identified using query search of all Arabidopsis LBD genes against sunflower genome (version r1.2) followed by LBD domain sequence verification. A phylogenetic tree was reconstructed using MEGA-X program. The identified genes were phylogenetically classified into two main …