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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Microplastic Abundance, Distribution And Impacts On Sargassum-Associated Juvenile Fishes In The Gulf Of Mexico, Olivia Lestrade Dec 2020

Microplastic Abundance, Distribution And Impacts On Sargassum-Associated Juvenile Fishes In The Gulf Of Mexico, Olivia Lestrade

Master's Theses

Microplastics are a concern in marine environments because they are highly durable, ubiquitous, and can be mistaken for food and ingested by small organisms. Pelagic Sargassum, an important habitat for larval and juvenile stages of many fish species, is found in large surface aggregations, and may provide complex structure in which microplastics become trapped. This could lead to greater risk of microplastic ingestion by fish early life stages associated with Sargassum habitats. To better understand the impacts of microplastics within Sargassum communities, this study examined 1) microplastic concentrations and ingestion by juvenile fishes associated with Sargassum; 2) the microbial …


Elucidating The Molecular Pathways Involved In The Fitness And Water Stress Response Of Pseudomonas Synxantha 2-79 In The Plant Rhizosphere, Clint Henry D. Pablo May 2020

Elucidating The Molecular Pathways Involved In The Fitness And Water Stress Response Of Pseudomonas Synxantha 2-79 In The Plant Rhizosphere, Clint Henry D. Pablo

Master's Theses

Pseudomonas synxantha 2-79 is a biocontrol agent that represents beneficial indigenous rhizobacteria that are broadly distributed in the Pacific Northwest, USA and flourish in the rhizosphere of commercially grown wheat under surprisingly arid conditions. The molecular adaptation of 2-79-like bacteria to plants growing in dry soils is poorly understood. We hypothesized that the ability of 2-79 to colonize and persist in the rhizosphere of water-stressed plants is underpinned by the formation of hydrating biofilms and the utilization of root exudates that contain plant-derived osmoprotectants called quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs). We tested this hypothesis by identifying waters stress response pathways in …


Development Of An Attenuated Zika Virus By Editing The 5’ Untranslated Region, E. Ashley Thompson May 2020

Development Of An Attenuated Zika Virus By Editing The 5’ Untranslated Region, E. Ashley Thompson

Master's Theses

Zika Virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted flavivirus that usually causes no symptoms to mild febrile in humans, and it has been regarded as an insignificant pathogen to public health. However, recent outbreaks of ZIKV infection have revealed that ZIKV can cause severe neurological effects in adults, such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), and in infants whose mothers acquired the virus during pregnancy, causing Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS). Currently, no approved vaccine is available and there is a critical need to develop an effective and safe vaccine. While most vaccine developmental strategies target the viral prM-E protein of ZIKV, we aimed to …