Molecular Biology Commons^™

Illuminate The Pathway Of Membrane Protein Association And Degradation, Zhaoshuai Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Escherichia coli transporter protein AcrB and its homologues are the inner membrane components of the Resistance-Nodulation-Division (RND) family efflux pumps in Gram-negative bacteria. It is well accepted that soluble proteins are only marginally stable, but such insight is missing for membrane proteins. The lack of stability data, including thermodynamic stability and oligomer association affinity is a result of intrinsic difficulties in working with membrane proteins. In addition, the degradation of soluble proteins in E. coli has been extensively studied whereas the degradation process of membrane proteins remains unclear. A focus of my thesis is the validation and development of methods …

High-Throughput Single-Molecule Mapping Links Subtelomeric Variants And Long-Range Haplotypes With Specific Telomeres, Eleanor Young, Steven Pastor, Ramakrishnan Rajagopalan, Jennifer Mccaffrey, Justin Sibert, Angel C. Y. Mak, Pui-Yan Kwok, Harold Riethman, Ming Xiao

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Accurate maps and DNA sequences for human subtelomere regions, along with detailed knowledge of subtelomere variation and long-range telomereterminal haplotypes in individuals, are critical for understanding telomere function and its roles in human biology. Here, we use a highly automated whole genome mapping technology in nano-channel arrays to analyze large terminal human chromosome segments extending from chromosome-specific subtelomere sequences through subtelomeric repeat regions to terminal (TTAGGG) n repeat tracts. We establish detailed maps for subtelomere gap regions in the human reference sequence, detect many new large subtelomeric variants and demonstrate the feasibility of long-range haplotyping through segmentally duplicated subtelomere regions. …

Tissue Specific Microenvironments: A Key Tool For Tissue Engineering And Regenerative Medicine, Patrick C. Sachs, Peter A. Mollica, Robert D. Bruno

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

The accumulated evidence points to the microenvironment as the primary mediator of cellular fate determination. Comprised of parenchymal cells, stromal cells, structural extracellular matrix proteins, and signaling molecules, the microenvironment is a complex and synergistic edifice that varies tissue to tissue. Furthermore, it has become increasingly clear that the microenvironment plays crucial roles in the establishment and progression of diseases such as cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, cancer, and ageing. Here we review the historical perspectives on the microenvironment, and how it has directed current explorations in tissue engineering. By thoroughly understanding the role of the microenvironment, we can begin to correctly …

Potential Efficacy Of Targeting Mll1 In Breast Cancer, Austin Gable Holmes

Master's Theses

In 2017, it is estimated that breast cancer will be the most prevalent newly diagnosed cancer in females, at 30% in the U.S. alone1. From the early 1990s to 2014 the death rate in females from breast cancer has dropped by 10% but still stands as the second highest cancer related death in females in the U.S.2. One of the biggest hurdles in breast cancer research is disease heterogeneity. New mechanisms of disease development and progression are encountered frequently. One mechanism studied in the past decades is epigenetics. It has been theorized that the cancer epigenome can maintain an abnormal …

A Rare Case Of Erythema Elevatum Diutinum Presenting As Diffuse Neuropathy, G H. Nguyen, E L. Guo, D Norris

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Evidence Of A Perilipin 5 Splice Variant, Brodie Ranzau

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Alternative splicing occurs throughout the human genome, leading to multiple proteins from a single gene. The resulting proteins can be nearly identical or vastly different in how they function. Alternative splicing within the perilipin family has been observed in perilipins 1 and 3, giving rise to proteins with varying functions. In the course of our studies on perilipin 5, an immunoblot signal was observed that corresponded to an approximately 35 kDa protein. Western blot analysis of this protein has revealed its expression in C2C12 cultured myoblasts and in heart and liver mouse tissue. Further analysis of perilipin 5 cDNA through …

Navigating Human Cytomegalovirus (Hcmv) Envelopment And Egress, William Longeway Close

Wayne State University Dissertations

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous viral pathogen. In individuals with fully functioning and mature immune systems, HCMV is associated with mild symptoms prior to establishing latency. In individuals with naïve or compromised immune systems, HCMV is capable of causing severe organ damage. HCMV is the leading infectious cause of congenital birth defects and a major non-genetic cause of hearing loss. Unfortunately, antiviral treatment options lack diversity due to limited knowledge of virion replication. If HCMV replication were better understood, new antiviral treatments could be developed.

In this work, we describe the development and implementation of new tools to study …

Expression, Purification And Characterization Of Lysine Methyltransferase Smyd5, Wen Xue

Wayne State University Theses

Methylation of histones and non-histone proteins play vital roles in numerous cellular processes including gene expression regulation and DNA damage response. The identifications of methyltransferase SMYD protein family are not well characterized. SMYD5 is a unique and critical member of SMYD family involved in immune response, stem cell renew, hematopoiesis regulation and cancer metastasis. Understanding its function and structure is monumental to human disease. With the achievement of SMYD5 expression and purification, the association between SMYD5 and its substrate histone H4 has been investigated. While possessing a poly-E tail instead of the TPR domain included in other members, SMYD5 is …

Biochemical Analysis Of Putative Single-Stranded Nucleic Acid Binding Proteins In Porphyromonas Gingivalis, Steve H. Kokorelis

Theses and Dissertations

Proteins that bind to both DNA and RNA embody the ability to perform multiple functions by a single gene product. These nucleic acid binding proteins in prokaryotes can play a vital role in many cellular processes, including replication, transcription, gene expression, recombination, and repair, to name a few. Nucleic acid binding proteins have unique functional characteristics that stem from their structural attributes that have evolved in a widely-conserved manner. In Escherichia coli (E. coli), the highly-conserved histone-like protein, HU, which predominates as a heterodimer of HUα and HUβ, has been found to bind to both dsDNA and ssDNA. …

An Effective Computational Method Incorporating Multiple Secondary Structure Predictions In Topology Determination For Cryo-Em Images, Abhishek Biswas, Desh Ranjan, Mohammad Zubair, Stephanie Zeil, Kamal Al Nasr, Jing He

Computer Science Faculty Publications

A key idea in de novo modeling of a medium-resolution density image obtained from cryo-electron microscopy is to compute the optimal mapping between the secondary structure traces observed in the density image and those predicted on the protein sequence. When secondary structures are not determined precisely, either from the image or from the amino acid sequence of the protein, the computational problem becomes more complex. We present an efficient method that addresses the secondary structure placement problem in presence of multiple secondary structure predictions and computes the optimal mapping. We tested the method using 12 simulated images from alpha-proteins and …

Transcriptional Regulation Of Skeletal Muscle Atrophy-Induced Gene Expression By Muscle Ring Finger-1 And Myogenic Regulatory Factors, Karina Marie Kakareka

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Skeletal muscle wasting occurs as a corollary of numerous physiological conditions, including denervation, immobilization, and aging. The E3 ubiquitin ligases MuRF1 and MAFbx are induced under nearly all atrophy conditions and are believed to play a key role in protein degradation. Data in this thesis provides interesting new evidence that MuRF1 may also act as a transcriptional modulator of atrophy-induced genes or atrogenes. The transcriptional regulation of MuRF1 and MAFbx were characterized using a reporter gene system and exhibited repressed activity in C₂C₁₂ cells overexpressing MuRF1. Furthermore, ectopic expression of the myogenic regulatory factors (MRFs), MyoD and …