Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Commons^™

Nanoparticle Conversion To Biofilms: In Vitro Demonstration Using Serum-Derived Mineralo-Organic Nanoparticles, Tsui-Yin Wong, Hsin-Hsin Peng, Cheng-Yeu Wu, Jan Martel, David M. Ojcius, Fu-Yung Hsu, John Ding-E. Young

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

Aims: Mineralo-organic nanoparticles (NPs) detected in biological fluids have been described as precursors of physiological and pathological calcifications in the body. Our main objective was to examine the early stages of mineral NP formation in body fluids. Materials & methods: A nanomaterial approach based on atomic force microscopy, dynamic light scattering, electron microscopy and spectroscopy was used. Results: The mineral particles, which contain the serum proteins albumin and fetuin-A, initially precipitate in the form of round amorphous NPs that gradually grow in size, aggregate and coalesce to form crystalline mineral films similar to the structures observed in calcified human arteries. …

The Neurobiology Of Circadian Rhythms, Patricia J. Sollars, Gary E. Pickard

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Daily rhythms in nature, such as the opening and closing of flowers or our patterns of sleep and wakefulness and their association with the perpetual alteration of night and day, were recognized in antiquity although their origins were not questioned until the eighteenth century. The French Astronomer Jean-Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan conducted an investigation into whether the leaves of the Mimosa plant opened in response to light.¹ While de Mairan’s experiments were the first to question the origin of such daily rhythms, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle is credited with the first suggestion that they arose through an internal timekeeping …

A Synthetic Porcine Reproductive And Respiratory Syndrome Virus Strain Confers Unprecedented Levels Of Heterologous Protection, Hiep Vu, Fangrui Ma, William W. Laegreid, Asit K. Pattnaik, David Steffen, Alan R. Doster, Fernando Osorio

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Current vaccines do not provide sufficient levels of protection against divergent porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) strains circulating in the field, mainly due to the substantial variation of the viral genome. We describe here a novel approach to generate a PRRSV vaccine candidate that could confer unprecedented levels of heterologous protection against divergent PRRSV isolates. By using a set of 59 nonredundant, full-genome sequences of type 2 PRRSVs, a consensus genome (designated PRRSV-CON) was generated by aligning these 59 PRRSV full-genome sequences, followed by selecting the most common nucleotide found at each position of the alignment. Next, the …

Eosinophils From Murine Lamina Propria Induce Differentiation Of Naïve T Cells Into Regulatory T Cells Via Tgf-Β1 And Retinoic Acid, Hong-Hu Chen, Ai-Hua Sun, David M. Ojcius, Wei-Lin Hu, Yu-Mei Ge, Xu'ai Lin, Lan-Juan Li, Jian-Ping Pan, Jie Yan

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

Treg cells play a crucial role in immune tolerance, but mechanisms that induce Treg cells are poorly understood. We here have described eosinophils in lamina propria (LP) that displayed high aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity, a rate-limiting step during all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) synthesis, and expressed TGF-β1 mRNA and high levels of ATRA. Co-incubation assay confirmed that LP eosinophils induced the differentiation of naïve T cells into Treg cells. Differentiation promoted by LP eosinophils were inhibited by blocked either TGF-β1 or ATRA. Peripheral blood (PB) eosinophils did not produce ATRA and could not induce Treg differentiation. These data identifies LP eosinophils …

Detection And Characterization Of Mineralo-Organic Nanoparticles In Human Kidneys, Tsui-Yin Wong, Cheng-Yeu Wu, Jan Martel, Cheng-Wei Lin, Fu-Yung Hsu, David M. Ojcius, Paul Y. Lin, John Ding-E. Young

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

Ectopic calcification is associated with various human diseases, including atherosclerosis, cancer, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes mellitus. Although mineral nanoparticles have been detected in calcified blood vessels, the nature and role of these particles in the human body remain unclear. Here we show for the first time that human kidney tissues obtained from end-stage chronic kidney disease or renal cancer patients contain round, multilamellar mineral particles of 50 to 1,500 nm, whereas no particles are observed in healthy controls. The mineral particles are found mainly in the extracellular matrix surrounding the convoluted tubules, collecting ducts and loops of Henle as …

Hirsutella Sinensis Mycelium Attenuates Bleomycin-Induced Pulmonary Inflammation And Fibrosis In Vivo, Tsung-Teng Huang, Hsin-Chih Lai, Yun-Fei Ko, David M. Ojcius, Ying-Wei Lan, Jan Martel, John Ding-E. Young, Kowit-Yu Chong

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

Hirsutella sinensis mycelium (HSM), the anamorph of Cordyceps sinensis, is a traditional Chinese medicine that has been shown to possess various pharmacological properties. We previously reported that this fungus suppresses interleukin-1β and IL-18 secretion by inhibiting both canonical and non-canonical inflammasomes in human macrophages. However, whether HSM may be used to prevent lung fibrosis and the mechanism underlying this activity remain unclear. Our results show that pretreatment with HSM inhibits TGF-β1–induced expression of fibronectin and α-SMA in lung fibroblasts. HSM also restores superoxide dismutase expression in TGF-β1–treated lung fibroblasts and inhibits reactive oxygen species production in lung epithelial cells. Furthermore, …

Dynamic Ubiquitination Drives Herpesvirus Neuroinvasion, Nicholas J. Huffmaster, Patricia J. Sollars, Alexsia L. Richards, Gary E. Pickard, Gregory A. Smith

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Neuroinvasive herpesviruses display a remarkable propensity to enter the nervous system of healthy individuals in the absence of obvious trauma at the site of inoculation. We document a repurposing of cellular ubiquitin during infection to switch the virus between two invasive states. The states act sequentially to defeat consecutive host barriers of the peripheral nervous system and together promote the potent neuroinvasive phenotype. The first state directs virus access to nerve endings in peripheral tissue, whereas the second delivers virus particles within nerve fibers to the neural ganglia. Mutant viruses locked in either state remain competent to overcome the corresponding …

Trim21 Regulates Nmi-Ifi35 Complex-Mediated Inhibition Of Innate Antiviral Response, Anshuman Das, Phat X. Dinh, Asit K. Pattnaik

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

In this study, using an immunoprecipitation coupled with mass spectrometry approach, we have identified the E3 ubiquitin ligase Trim21 as an interacting partner of IFI35 and Nmi. We found that this interaction leads to K63-linked ubiquitination on K22 residue of Nmi, but not IFI35. Using domain deletion analysis, we found that the interaction is mediated via the coiled-coil domain of Nmi and the carboxyl-terminal SPRY domain of Trim21. Furthermore, we show that depletion of Trim21 leads to significantly reduced interaction of Nmi with IFI35, which results in the abrogation of the negative regulatory function of the Nmi-IFI35 complex on innate …

Investigation Of Behavioral And Cellular Changes In The Maternal Immune Activation Model Of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Shreya Roy

Theses & Dissertations

Maternal infection during pregnancy, which leads to maternal immune activation (MIA), is an environmental risk factor for autism spectrum disorders (ASD). MIA can be induced in mice and their offspring exhibit behaviors that model the core symptoms of ASD. One of the core behavioral symptoms in ASD patients is presence of increased repetitive behavior, which is modeled by an increase in marble burying in MIA mice. It has been shown that the deficits seen in MIA mice are associated with the dysregulation of cytokine levels in the developing brain, specifically an increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines. In this thesis, I tested …

Viewing The Extracellular Matrix: An Imaging Method For Tissue Engineering, Michael Drakopoulos, Sarah Calve

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The field of regenerative medicine seeks to create replacement tissues and organs, both to repair deficiencies in biological function and to treat structural damage caused by injury. Scaffoldings mimicking extracellular matrix (ECM), the structure to which cells attach to form tissues, have been developed from synthetic polymers and also been prepared by decellularizing adult tissue. However, the structure of ECM undergoes significant remodeling during natural tissue repair, suggesting that ECM-replacement constructs that mirror developing tissues may promote better regeneration than those modeled on adult tissues. This work investigated the effectiveness of a method of viewing the extracellular matrix of developing …

Prophylactic Cranial Irradiation Reduces The Incidence Of Brain Metastasis In A Mouse Model Of Metastatic Breast Cancer, Daniel L. Smith

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) is a preventative whole-brain irradiation technique used to reduce the incidence of brain metastasis and improve overall survival in select patients with small cell lung cancer and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A population of breast cancer patients – stage IV, HER2+ or triple-negative – has emerged as having a high risk of developing brain metastases. Because only 10-20% of breast cancer patients diagnosed with brain metastases survive longer than one year, in this high-risk population the benefit of PCI – potential for reduced incidence of brain metastasis and improved overall survival – may outweigh the risks – …

Ganoderma Lucidum Reduces Obesity In Mice By Modulating The Composition Of The Gut Microbiota, Chih-Jung Chang, Chuan-Sheng Lin, Chia-Chen Lu, Jan Martel, Yun-Fei Ko, David M. Ojcius, Shun-Fu Tseng, Tsung-Ru Wu, Yi-Yuan Margaret Chen, John Ding-E. Young, Hsin-Chih Lai

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

Obesity is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation and intestinal dysbiosis. Ganoderma lucidum is a medicinal mushroom used in traditional Chinese medicine with putative anti-diabetic effects. Here, we show that a water extract of Ganoderma lucidum mycelium (WEGL) reduces body weight, inflammation and insulin resistance in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD). Our data indicate that WEGL not only reverses HFD-induced gut dysbiosis—as indicated by the decreased Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratios and endotoxin-bearing Proteobacteria levels—but also maintains intestinal barrier integrity and reduces metabolic endotoxemia. The anti-obesity and microbiota-modulating effects are transmissible via horizontal faeces transfer from WEGL-treated mice to HFD-fed mice. We further …

Curcumin: A Multi-Dimensional Approach To Pancreatic Cancer Targeting Cell Death And Exosomes, Carlos J. Diaz Osterman

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Pancreatic cancer is currently one of the most difficult diseases to treat due to difficulty of detection and the aggressive nature of the disease. In addition, pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rates compared to other cancer types. These mortality rates are attributable in part to increasing resistance to cancer therapy. Cancer therapy resistance is caused by adaptations that favor survival within cancer cells and their environment, termed the tumor microenvironment. Intracellular adaptations include the overexpression of resistance-linked genes, such as the inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) family of proteins and overall resistance to cell death. Adaptations in the tumor microenvironment …

Crotalus Snake Venom Preconditioning To Prevent Surgical Brain Injury, Cherine Hee-Sun Kim

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Preventive measures are increasingly relevant to medical practice. Preconditioning, a preemptive therapy that administers mildly harmful stimuli to induce endogenous protective mechanisms before major injury, has been shown to minimize injury in many animal models. Given the elective nature of most neurosurgical procedures, the surgical brain injury (SBI) rodent model provides an ideal platform for preconditioning. Our work shows that preconditioning with Crotalus rattlesnake venom, known for its hemorrhagic and inflammatory effects, mitigates some harmful effects of SBI. We have identified two proteins of interest in Crotalus venom: snake venom metalloproteinase (SVMP), an enzyme with hemorrhagic effects, and phospholipase A2 …

Structural And Functional Interactions Between Bro1 Domain Of Human Alix Protein And Nucleocapsid Packaging Rna Complex From Hiv, Scott Gross

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

A virus is only as powerful as its ability to spread. Enveloped retroviruses, namely HIV-1, use exocytosis pathways that normal host cells use to release particles from the plasma membrane. The main pathways of interest in this study are the Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for Transport (ESCRT) and adjacent ALIX pathways. The ESCRT pathway is especially important for degradation of receptor/cargo complexes that form Multi-Vesicular Bodies (MVBs). Currently, there is no known therapy that targets this endosomal pathway, which would prevent the spread of the virus to other cells. The virus has adapted to jump from pathway to pathway when …

The Use Of Shape Memory Polymers As A Tool To Study Human Fibrosarcoma And Murine Mesenchymal Stem Cell Migration, Justin N. Elkhechen

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are a class of “smart” materials that can transform between two distinct conformations through external stimuli, such as heat or electricity. Their usage in bioengineering has led to a promising field of research that lies at the interface of cell and mechanobiology, potentially providing insight into cancer therapies and tissue development—two processes that exist in dynamic environments in vivo. The present work involves creating new, shape changing, scaffolds for studies to analyze cell migration upon changes to the environmental topography. Specifically, this Capstone has been primarily focused on the development of a “half and half” fibrous …

Characterization Of Ghrelin O-Acyltransferase Active Site, Leslie Patton

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Ghrelin, first discovered in 1999, is a 28-amino acid peptide hormone involved in the regulation of appetite, insulin secretion and sensitivity, and many neurological effects such as learning, memory, and depression.^1-6 Ghrelin has been identified to have a unique posttranslational octanoylation carried out by the enzyme ghrelin O-acyltransferase (GOAT). This distinctive modification is a point of interest in studying GOAT whereby blocking the acylation of the ghrelin could potentially halt the activity of the peptide hormone and provide a means of treating obesity, diabetes, and other diseases affected by ghrelin levels. The duration of my project involved working …

Osteomyelitis Associated With Nocardiopsis Composta In A Dog, Elisa N. Salas, Debra Royal, Lance Kurz, J. Dustin Loy

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Osteomyelitis can be caused by bacterial or fungal agents or may be idiopathic. Cocci, bacilli, and filamentous bacteria such as members of the Actinomycetes have all been determined to be causes of osteomyelitis. Differential diagnoses for Gram-positive filamentous rods in the family Actinomycetales causing osteomyelitis in the dog, include members of the more frequently encountered genera Nocardia and Actinomyces. Bacteria gain access to the bone via several routes but are most often associated with direct inoculation (such as percutaneous injuries, compound fractures, or secondary to foreign bodies such as surgical or other material including dirt and wood) and fracture …

Aggregatibacter Actinomycetemcomitans Cytolethal Distending Toxin Activates The Nlrp3 Inflammasome In Human Macrophages Leading To The Release Of Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines, Bruce J. Shenker, David M. Ojcius, Lisa P. Walker, Ali Zekavat, Monika Damek Scuron, Kathleen Boesze-Battaglia

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

The cytolethal distending toxin (Cdt) is produced from a number of bacteria capable of causing infection and inflammatory disease. Our previous studies with Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans Cdt demonstrate not only that the active toxin subunit functions as a phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-triphosphate (PIP3) phosphatase but also that macrophages exposed to the toxin were stimulated to produce proinflammatory cytokines. We now demonstrate that the Cdt-induced proinflammatory response involves the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Specific inhibitors and short hairpin RNA (shRNA) were employed to demonstrate requirements for NLRP3 and ASC as well as caspase-1. Furthermore, Cdt-mediated inflammasome activation is dependent upon upstream signals, including reactive …

Relationship Between Heat-Labile Enterotoxin Secretion Capacity And Virulence In Wild Type Porcine-Origin Enterotoxigenic Escherichia Coli Strains, Prageeth Wijemanne, Jun Xing, Emil M. Berberov, David B. Marx, David H. Francis, Rodney A. Moxley

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) is an important virulence factor secreted by some strains of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). The prototypic human-origin strain H10407 secretes LT via a type II secretion system(T2SS). We sought to determine the relationship between the capacity to secrete LT and virulence in porcine-origin wild type (WT) ETEC strains. Sixteen WT ETEC strains isolated from cases of severe diarrheal disease were analyzed by GM1ganglioside enzyme- linked immunosorbent assay tomeasure LT concentrations in culture supernatants. All strains had detectable LT in supernatants by 2 h of culture and 1 strain, which was particularly virulent in gnotobiotic piglets (3030-2), had …

Environmental Microbes And Uveitis: Is Microbial Exposure Always Bad?, Chandirasegaran Massilamany, A. Gangaplara, J. Reddy

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

The eye generally is considered to be an immune-privileged organ, but this notion is being increasingly challenged as ocular antigens can be expressed in the generative lymphoid organs, resulting in attainment of self-tolerance. What triggers a break in this tolerant state is a fundamental question in autoimmunity research. The general belief is that exposure to environmental microbes can break self-tolerance in genetically susceptible individuals, leading to the induction of autoimmune responses. The molecular mimicry hypothesis has been proposed as one major mechanistic, pathway through which microbes, by generating crossreactive immune responses, can induce ocular damage of the kind that might …

Epigenetic Role Of Ptip In Mouse Spermatogenesis, Chengjing Liu

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In mammals, spermatogenesis is a biological process inside the testis to produce spermatozoa from spermatogonia. This process is governed by both genetic and epigenetic mechanisms and thus is a powerful system for epigenetic research. Methylation of histone 3 lysine 4 (H3K4) is an epigenetic mark, which has been found to be dynamically modulated in mouse male germ cells during spermatogenesis. Pax2 Transactivation domain Interaction Protein (PTIP) has been recently identified as part of a H3K4 methyltransferase complex. In this study, I hypothesize that PTIP is an essential epigenetic regulator in mouse spermatogenesis. To test this hypothesis, I first established a …

Relationship Between Heat-Labile Enterotoxin Secretion Capacity And Virulence In Wild Type Porcine-Origin Enterotoxigenic Escherichia Coli Strains, Prageeth Wijemanne, Jun Xing, Emil M. Berberov, David H. Francis, Rodney A. Moxley

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) is an important virulence factor secreted by some strains of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). The prototypic human-origin strain H10407 secretes LT via a type II secretion system(T2SS). We sought to determine the relationship between the capacity to secrete LT and virulence in porcine-origin wild type (WT) ETEC strains. Sixteen WT ETEC strains isolated from cases of severe diarrheal disease were analyzed by GM1ganglioside enzyme- linked immunosorbent assay tomeasure LT concentrations in culture supernatants. All strains had detectable LT in supernatants by 2 h of culture and 1 strain, which was particularly virulent in gnotobiotic piglets (3030-2), had …

Temperatures Of Storage Areas In Large Animal Veterinary Practice Vehicles In The Summer And Comparison With Drug Manufacturers’ Storage Recommendations, Jeff D. Ondrak, Meredyth L. Jones, Virginia R. Fajt

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: Large animal veterinarians carry drugs in their practice vehicles in storage areas that are not typically refrigerated. The most common upper limits of manufacturers’ storage temperatures for United States (U.S.)-approved non-refrigerated drugs are 25 or 30 °C. Because ambient temperatures in many locations in the U.S. exceed these temperatures during the summer, we measured storage area temperatures over 4 months in the summer of 2013 to evaluate the extent to which labeled storage temperatures are exceeded.

Methods: A convenience sample of 12 vehicles from 5 central Texas practices and 12 vehicles from 4 south central Nebraska practices was …

Gadolinium Modifies The Cell Membrane To Inhibit Permeabilization By Nanosecond Electric Pulses, Elena C. Gianulis, Andrei G. Pakhomov

Bioelectrics Publications

Lanthanide ions are the only known blockers of permeabilization by electric pulses of nanosecond duration (nsEP), but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. We employed timed applications of Gd³⁺ before or after nsEP (600-ns, 20 kV/cm) to investigate the mechanism of inhibition, and measured the uptake of the membrane-impermeable YO-PRO-1 (YP) and propidium (Pr) dyes. Gd³⁺ inhibited dye uptake in a concentration-dependent manner. The inhibition of Pr uptake was always about 2-fold stronger. Gd³⁺ was effective when added after nsEP, as well as when it was present during nsEP exposure and removed afterward. Pores formed by nsEP in …

Liver Perilipin 5 Expression Worsens Hepatosteatosis But Not Insulin Resistance In High Fat-Fed Mice, Michelle B. Trevino, David Mazur-Hart, Yui Machida, Timothy King, Joseph Nadler, Elena V. Galkina, Arjun Poddar, Sucharita Dutta, Yumi Imai

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Perilipin 5 (PLIN5) is a lipid droplet (LD) protein highly expressed in oxidative tissues, including the fasted liver. However, its expression also increases in nonalcoholic fatty liver. To determine whether PLIN5 regulates metabolic phenotypes of hepatosteatosis under nutritional excess, liver targeted overexpression of PLIN5 was achieved using adenoviral vector (Ad-PLIN5) in male C57BL/6J mice fed high-fat diet. Mice treated with adenovirus expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) (Ad-GFP) served as control. Ad-PLIN5 livers increased LD in the liver section, and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry revealed increases in lipid classes associated with LD, including triacylglycerol, cholesterol ester, and phospholipid classes, …

Mutations In The 5’ Ntr And The Non-Structural Protein 3a Of The Coxsackievirus B3 Selectively Attenuate Myocarditogenicity, Chandirasegaran Massilamany, Arunakumar Gangaplara, Rakesh H. Basavalingappa, Rajkumar A. Rajasekaran, Hiep Vu, Jean-Jack Riethoven, David Steffen, Asit K. Pattnaik, Jay Reddy

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

The 5’ non-translated region (NTR) is an important molecular determinant that controls replication and virulence of coxsackievirus B (CVB)3. Previous studies have reported many nucleotide (nt) sequence differences in the Nancy strain of the virus, including changes in the 5’ NTR with varying degrees of disease severity. In our studies of CVB3-induced myocarditis, we sought to generate an infectious clone of the virus for routine in vivo experimentation. By determining the viral nt sequence, we identified three new nt substitutions in the clone that differed from the parental virus strain: C97U in the 5’ NTR; a silent mutation, A4327G, in …

Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy: An Ultra-Sensitive Tool Used To Evaluate Intracellular Antiretroviral Nano-Drug Delivery In Hela Cells, Subhra Mandal, You Zhou, Annemarie Shibata, Christopher J. Destache

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

In the last decade, confocal fluorescence microscopy has emerged as an ultra-sensitive tool for real-time study of nanoparticles (NPs) fate at the cellular-level. According to WHO 2007 report, Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is still one of the world’s major health threats by claiming approximately 7,000 new infections daily worldwide. Although combination antiretroviral drugs (cARV) therapy has improved the life-expectancy of HIV-infected patients, routine use of high doses of cARVhas serious health consequences and requires complete adherence to the regimen for success. Thus, our research goal is to fabricate long-acting novel cARV loaded poly(lactide-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles (cARV-NPs) as …

Association Of Autophagy In The Cell Death Mediated By Dihydrotestosterone In Autoreactive T Cells Independent Of Antigenic Stimulation, Ting Jia, Annandurai Anandhan, Chandirasegaran Massilamany, Rajkumar A. Rajasekaran, Rodrigo Franco, Jay Reddy

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Gender disparity is well documented in the mouse model of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) induced with proteolipid protein (PLP) 139–151, in which female, but not male, SJL mice show a chronic relapsing-remitting paralysis. Furthermore, dihydrotestosterone (DHT) has been shown to ameliorate the severity of EAE, but the underlying mechanisms of its protective effects are unclear. Using major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II dextramers for PLP 139-151, we tested the hypothesis that DHT selectively modulates the expansion and functionalities of antigen-specific T cells. Unexpectedly, we noted that DHT induced cell death in antigen-specific, autoreactive T cells, but the effects were not …

Evaluation Of An Interactive Workshop Designed To Teach Practical Welfare Techniques To Beef Cattle Caretakers And Decision Makers, Reneé Dewell, Christy Hanthorn, Jared Danielson, Rebecca Burzette, Johann Coetzee, D. Dee Griffin, Alejandro Ramirez, Grant Dewell

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

The purpose of the project was to evaluate the use of an interactive workshop designed to teach novel practical welfare techniques to beef cattle caretakers and decision makers. Following training, respondents reported being more likely to use or recommend use of local anesthesia for dehorning and castration and were more inclined to use meloxicam for pain management. Respondents also reported improvement in performing all skills taught in the workshop. These results suggest instructional techniques used to teach practical concepts/techniques relevant to beef cattle welfare led to improvements in both perceived competency and estimated likelihood that the material will be used. …