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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Characterization Of Sox Family Members In Sponge Stem Cells And During Development, Karen E. Leeds
Characterization Of Sox Family Members In Sponge Stem Cells And During Development, Karen E. Leeds
Honors Theses
Sponges are considered the oldest and most basal part of the metazoan lineage and therefore possess a unique set of gene families that are highly conserved among all animals. One of these gene families is known as Sox transcription factors. Sox genes are known to play important roles in complex animals such as the specification of the primary layers of the body, determination of sex, and most recently induction of induced pluirpotent stem cells (iPS cells) from both human and mouse fibroblasts with the help of three other transcription factors. We have found that two different demosponge species Halichondria bowerbanki …
The Exploration Of Novel Symbiotic Bacteria That May Have Influential Roles In Sponge Life History, Brittany E. West
The Exploration Of Novel Symbiotic Bacteria That May Have Influential Roles In Sponge Life History, Brittany E. West
Honors Theses
Sponges produce an impressive variety of secondary metabolites that perform a variety of ecological functions. Many marine sponges even harbor diverse carotenoid compounds, an unusual class of secondary metabolites that animals are incapable of producing. Furthermore, sponges serve as hosts to an astonishingly diverse microbial community that can occupy up to sixty percent of a sponge's biomass. Our research ultimately hopes to link microbial species to the production of secondary compounds, like carotenoids, and to assess the ecological role of such compounds and their effect on sponge life history strategy. This study describes the ecological distribution of two species of …