Biochemistry Commons^™

Elucidating The Effects Of Glucose Toxicity On Tauopathy And Aging, Lukas Fluitt

Natural Sciences and Mathematics | Biological Sciences Master's Theses

Diabetes patients are at higher risk of contracting an age-related neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the mechanisms which link these diseases are poorly understood. We hypothesize that glucose and elevated levels of the glycolysis by product advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), may be involved. AGEs accumulate with age and are elevated in both diabetic and AD patients. Diabetes is a metabolic disorder for which consumption of sugar-rich diets is a major risk factor and is central to etiology in the vast majority of cases.

We show that transgenic C. elegans expressing wild type (WT) human tau fed a …

Insights Into The Therapeutic Potential Of Salt Inducible Kinase 1: A Novel Mechanism Of Metabolic Control, Randi Fitzgibbon

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Salt inducible kinase 1 (SIK1) has been considered a stress-inducible kinase since it was first cloned in 1999. Continued efforts since this time have been dedicated to characterizing the structure and function of SIK1. Such research has laid the ground work for our understanding of SIK1 action and regulation in tissue and stimuli dependent manners. The fundamental findings of this dissertation continue in this tradition and include investigations of SIK1 regulatory mechanisms in skeletal muscle cells, the cellular and physiological effects of SIK1 loss of function in vitro and in vivo, and intracellular metabolic and mitochondrial regulation by this …

Biochemical Characterization Of Two Yeast Paralogous Proteins Mth1 And Std1, Satish Pasula

Dissertations

Glucose is the most abundant monosaccharide and preferred carbon and energy source for most cells. Many organisms have evolved sophisticated means to sense glucose and respond to it appropriately. The budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae senses glucose through two transmembrane proteins, Snf3 and Rgt2. In the presence of extracellular glucose Snf3 and Rgt2 generate an intracellular signal that leads to the degradation of Mthl and Stdl, thereby inducing the expression of hexose transporter genes (EXT) by inhibiting the function of Rgtl, a transcriptional repressor of HXT genes. Mthl and Stdl are degraded via the Yckl/2 Kinase-SCFGrrl-26S proteasome pathway triggered by the …