Structural Biology Commons^™

Impact Of Collateral Enlargement On Smooth Muscle Phenotype, Alexander Jerome Bynum

Master's Theses

Peripheral Artery Disease is a very serious disease characterized by an arterial occlusion due to atherosclerotic plaques. In response to an arterial occlusion, arteriogenesis occurs, causing smooth muscle cells to transition from a contractile to synthetic state. Also following an arterial occlusion, functional impairment was seen in the collateral circuit. An immunofluorescence protocol was developed in order to assess the impact of collateral enlargement (arteriogenesis) on smooth muscle phenotype at various time points. Smooth muscle α-actin was used to mark all smooth muscle cells, Ki-67 was used to label proliferating smooth muscle cells, and a fluorescent nuclear stain was used …

Conformational Changes In The Extracellular Domain Of Glutamate Receptors, Anu Rambhadran

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

The family of membrane protein called glutamate receptors play an important role in the central nervous system in mediating signaling between neurons. Glutamate receptors are involved in the elaborate game that nerve cells play with each other in order to control movement, memory, and learning.

Neurons achieve this communication by rapidly converting electrical signals into chemical signals and then converting them back into electrical signals. To propagate an electrical impulse, neurons in the brain launch bursts of neurotransmitter molecules like glutamate at the junction between neurons, called the synapse. Glutamate receptors are found lodged in the membranes of the post-synaptic …

Evolution Of Spur-Length Diversity In Aquilegia Petals Is Achieved Solely Through Cell-Shape Anisotropy, Joshua R. Puzey, Sharon J. Gerbode, Scott A. Hodges, Elena M. Kramer, L. Mahadevan

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

The role of petal spurs and specialized pollinator interactions has been studied since Darwin. Aquilegia petal spurs exhibit striking size and shape diversity, correlated with specialized pollinators ranging from bees to hawkmoths in a textbook example of adaptive radiation. Despite the evolutionary significance of spur length, remarkably little is known about Aquilegia spur morphogenesis and its evolution. Using experimental measurements, both at tissue and cellular levels, combined with numerical modelling, we have investigated the relative roles of cell divisions and cell shape in determining the morphology of the Aquilegia petal spur. Contrary to decades-old hypotheses implicating a discrete meristematic zone …

Akap2 Anchors Pka With Aquaporin-0 To Support Ocular Lens Transparency, Matthew G. Gold, Steve Reichow, Susan E. O'Neill, Chad R. Weisbrod, Lorene K. Langeberg, James E. Bruce, Tamir Gonen, John D. Scott

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

A decline in ocular lens transparency known as cataract afflicts 90% of individuals by the age 70. Chronic deterioration of lens tissue occurs as a pathophysiological consequence of defective water and nutrient circulation through channel and transporter proteins. A key component is the aquaporin-0 (AQP0) water channel whose permeability is tightly regulated in healthy lenses. Using a variety of cellular and biochemical approaches we have discovered that products of the A-kinase anchoring protein 2 gene (AKAP2/AKAP-KL) form a stable complex with AQP0 to sequester protein kinase A (PKA) with the channel. This permits PKA phosphorylation of serine 235 within a …

Advances In Structural And Functional Analysis Of Membrane Proteins By Electron Crystallography, Goragot Wisedchaisri, Steve Reichow, Tamir Gonen

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Electron crystallography is a powerful technique for the study of membrane protein structure and function in the lipid environment. When well-ordered two-dimensional crystals are obtained the structure of both protein and lipid can be determined and lipid-protein interactions analyzed. Protons and ionic charges can be visualized by electron crystallography and the protein of interest can be captured for structural analysis in a variety of physiologically distinct states. This review highlights the strengths of electron crystallography and the momentum that is building up in automation and the development of high throughput tools and methods for structural and functional analysis of membrane …

Sound Production In Two Loricariid Catfishes, Amanda Lynn Webb

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Many families of catfish produce sounds via pectoral spine stridulation and/or swim bladder compression using sonic muscles attached to the swim bladder. The sound production capabilities and characteristics in Loricariidae, the largest catfish family, have not been well examined. Sounds produced by two loricariid catfish species, Macrotocinclus affinis and Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps were recorded. Both species produce broad band calls via pectoral spine stridulation. These species produce sounds by rubbing the ridges of the dorsal process of the pectoral spine base against the groove of the pectoral girdle. Call duration was generally shorter in M. affinis (2-15 ms) as opposed to …

3d Picture Of The Syk-Vav1 Protein Complex: Tracking The B-Cell Signal One Complex At A Time, Dan I. Piraner

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Protein signaling is the key method by which cells recognize a stimulus from their environment and convert it into a response. Signaling occurs in many forms: hormones, growth factors, and even proteins may act as signals from the environment. The response to their detection must be carried from the cell surface, where the signal is detected, to the nucleus, where the cell alters its DNA expression. This study analyzes one component in the signaling pathway of Spleen Tyrosine Kinase (Syk). The Syk protein receives a signal from B-cell receptors and amplifies it, resulting in an adaptive immune response and the …

Hivtoolbox, An Integrated Web Application For Investigating Hiv, David P. Sargeant, Sandeep Deverasetty, Yang Luo, Angel Villahoz Baleta, Stephanie Zobrist, Viraj Rathnayake, Jacqueline C. Russo, Jay Vyas, Mark A. Muesing, Martin Schiller

Life Sciences Faculty Research

Many bioinformatic databases and applications focus on a limited domain of knowledge federating links to information in other databases. This segregated data structure likely limits our ability to investigate and understand complex biological systems. To facilitate research, therefore, we have built HIVToolbox, which integrates much of the knowledge about HIV proteins and allows virologists and structural biologists to access sequence, structure, and functional relationships in an intuitive web application. HIV-1 integrase protein was used as a case study to show the utility of this application. We show how data integration facilitates identification of new questions and hypotheses much more rapid …

Functional Studies Of Human Cellular Detoxification Enzymes, Melanie Neely Willis

Department of Biochemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Cellular detoxification allows for the maintenance of cellular homeostasis and prevention of abnormal cell growth by clearing harmful xenobiotics and endobiotics. After oxygenation by phase I enzymes, phase II enzymes such as glucuronosyltransferases and glutathione-s-transferases conjugate a small molecule to the compound, marking it for subsequent export. Many up-stream enzymes are also essential to cellular detoxification by supplying the small compounds for conjugation. These up-stream enzymes include UDP-glucose dehydrogenase, which synthesizes UDP-glucuronate, and glutamate cysteine ligase, which catalyzes the first and rate-limiting step in the synthesis of glutathione.
UDP-glucose dehydrogenase (UGDH) is an important enzyme in human development and in …

Enzymatic Characterization Of An Endolysin Mediated By Chaperonin In Bacteriophage Phi El, Diana A. Tafoya^, Nadia Herrera, Sudheer Molugu, Zachariah Hildenbrand, Maxim V. Filchikov, Vadim V. Mesyanzhinov, Konstantin A. Miroshnikov, Ricardo A. Bernal*

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Spring 2011

Bacteriophage phi-EL is a virus that attacks the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. One of the gene products from phi-EL is a putative endolysin. Endolysin is an enzyme produced during gene expression in the lytic cycle of the bacteriophage. Its function is to digest the peptidoglycan layer of the host cell wall, thereby releasing the newly formed virions. In order to confirm the identity of this putative endolysin, the gene product was transformed into competent E. coli cells, expressed to high levels and purified to high homogeneity using nickel affinity and size exclusion chromatography. The peptidoglycan-hydrolyzing activity of the protein …

Scireader Enables Reading Of Medical Content With Instantaneous Definitions, Patrick R. Gradie, Megan Litster, Rinu Thomas, Jay Vyas, Martin Schiller

Life Sciences Faculty Research

Background

A major problem patients encounter when reading about health related issues is document interpretation, which limits reading comprehension and therefore negatively impacts health care. Currently, searching for medical definitions from an external source is time consuming, distracting, and negatively impacts reading comprehension and memory of the material.

Methods

SciReader was built as a Java application with a Flex-based front-end client. The dictionary used bySciReader was built by consolidating data from several sources and generating new definitions with a standardized syntax. The application was evaluated by measuring the percentage of words defined in different documents. A survey was used …