Life Sciences Commons^™

Relationship Of Dna Methylation With Cardiovascular Fitness And Body Composition, Mihaela A. Ciulei

Honors College Theses

Global DNA Methylation (GDM), an epigenomic modification has been linked to the development of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. Our focus was to identify potential relationships between epigenetic alterations and both cardiovascular fitness and body composition measures. Purpose: As increases in aerobic fitness have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular disease, one purpose was to determine if a relationship was evident between global DNA methylation and VO2max. A secondary purpose was to determine if the relationship extends to body composition measured via Dual X-ray Absorbtometry (DXA). Methods: Fifty-two (male n=25, female n=27) subjects provided a blood sample for DNA …

Rapid Method Of Processing Sperm For Nucleic Acid Extraction In Clinical Research, Matthew K. De Gannes

Masters Theses

Background: Sperm contain highly compact nuclei, inhibiting DNA extraction using traditional techniques. Current methods extracting sperm DNA involve lengthy lysis and no means of stabilizing DNA, hindering clinical research.

Objective: We sought to optimize an efficient method of extracting high quality human sperm DNA.

Methods: Sperm from three volunteers were isolated using PureCeption. We tested 1) proteinase K with DNA/RNA Shield, 2) DTT and TCEP as reducing agents, 3) QIAshredder homogenization, and 4) stability of sperm DNA fresh (baseline) or after 4 weeks of storage at 4^OC in DNA/RNA Shield using modified Quick-gDNA MiniPrep. DNA was PCR amplified …

Population Dynamics And Genetic Structure Of Louisiana Black Bears In The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley Of Louisiana, Jared Scott Laufenberg

Doctoral Dissertations

In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted the Louisiana black bear threatened status under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, listing loss and fragmentation of habitat as the primary threats. The 1995 Recovery Plan outlines recovery goals designed to meet the objective of reducing threats to the Louisiana black bear metapopulation and supporting habitat. To meet that objective, the Recovery Plan requires 1) at least 2 viable subpopulations, 1 each in the Tensas and Atchafalaya River Basins, 2) movement corridors between the 2 viable subpopulations, and 3) long-term protection of the habitat supporting each viable subpopulation and interconnecting corridors …

Biophysical And Computational Investigations Into G-Quadruplex Structural Polymorphism And Interaction With Small Molecules., Huy Tuan Le

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the cell, guanine-rich nucleic acids can self-assemble into unique four stranded tertiary structures known as G-quadruplexes. G-quadruplex formation in the telomere leads inhibits telomerase, an enzyme activated in cancer cells to maintain the telomere and allowing for cancer cells to achieve immortality. G-quadruplex formation in the promoters and 5’-untranslated regions regulates the expression of many oncogenes. Furthermore, G-quadruplex formation during cellular replication promotes genomic instability, a characteristic which enables tumor development. Because of their implication in cancer, G-quadruplex structures have emerged as attractive drug targets for anti-tumor therapeutics. In the current dissertation work, we present three experimental approaches to …

Human Common Fragile Site Fra16d Flexibility Peak Is Not A Strong Mitotic: Recombination Hotspot In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Katina G. Kapellas

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Common fragile sites (CFS) are areas of the genome that tend to break when DNA replication is stressed or partially inhibited. Breaks at CFS can lead to gene deletions and amplifications that can result in the genesis of cancer cells. There is controversy about the mechanism of CFS instability. This study examines whether an AT-rich sequence called a flexibility peak from FRA16D can induce mitotic recombination events that lead to loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on chromosome III in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Two experimental yeast strains containing flexibility peak Flex1-(AT)15 from FRA16D were compared to a control strain lacking the Flex1 …

Application Of High-Performance Liquid-Chromatography Mass-Spectrometry Platform To Study Metabolism And Epigenetic Control Of Metabolism, Kylie Patricia Mitchell

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Naturally occurring small molecules (metabolites, signaling intermediates) are a critical component of the information flow in biology, along with DNA, RNA, and proteins. Metabolomics is an analytical approach that seeks to comprehensively analyze naturally occurring small molecules and quantify their dynamic changes in biological systems. In recent years metabolomics has begun to provide understanding of the metabolic basis of different diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Our lab built a High-Performance Liquid-Chromatography Mass-Spectrometry (HPLC-MS) based metabolomics platform to analyze metabolites from mammalian cells, spent cellular media, and model organisms such as C. elegans. We used C. elegans to …

Molecular Dynamics Simulations As A Characterization Method Of Biologically Relevant Segments Of Dna, Carman Polsinelli

Senior Honors Projects

Biologically relevant short sequences of DNA have previously been shown to possess high affinity and specificity for binding of small polyamide structures to their minor groove. These structures, or minor groove binders, have the potential to control access to specific regulatory regions of DNA. Before modeling the binding of these polyamides to the DNA, the small segments of DNA must be characterized for better understanding of the impact the minor groove binder will have on the structure of the DNA. The method for such a characterization is a molecular dynamics computer simulation including the solvent effects for a length of …

Oligonucleotide Design For Whole Genome Tiling Arrays, Qin Dong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Oligonucleotides are short, single-stranded fragments of DNA or RNA, designed to readily bind with a unique part in the target sequence. They have many important applications including PCR (polymerase chain reaction) amplification, microarrays, or FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) probes. While traditional microarrays are commonly used for measuring gene expression levels by probing for sequences of known and predicted genes, high-density, whole genome tiling arrays probe intensively for sequences that are known to exist in a contiguous region. Current programs for designing oligonucleotides for tiling arrays are not able to produce results that are close to optimal since they allow …

Mechanistic Studies Of C- And Y-Family Dna Polymerases, Indrajit Lahiri

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

DISSERTATION ABSTRACT

Helicase-Ssb Interactions In Recombination-Dependent Dna Repair And Replication, Christian Jordan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Dda, one of three helicases encoded by bacteriophage T4, has been well- characterized biochemically but its biological role remains unclear. It is thought to be involved in origin-dependent replication, recombination-dependent replication, anti- recombination, recombination repair, as well as in replication fork progression past template-bound nucleosomes and RNA polymerase. One of the proteins that most strongly interacts with Dda, Gp32, is the only single-stranded DNA binding protein (SSB) encoded by T4, is essential for DNA replication, recombination, and repair.

Previous studies have shown that Gp32 is essential for Dda stimulation of replication fork progression. Our studies show that interactions between Dda …