Biology Commons^™

Lake Macrophyte Nutrient Index Of Standing Waters In Serbia (Limnis), Dušanka Laketić, Snežana Radulović, Milica Živković, Tamara Jurca, Mac H. Alford

Faculty Publications

The aim of this study was to derive a Macrophyte Nutrient Index for standing waters in Serbia, based on the LEAFPACS method and to correlate it against existing Lake Typology.

A single data matrix of 46 species and 1463 sample quadrats was compiled from two datasets: a revised phytocenological database given according to Braun-Blanquet Cover Abundance Scale and a database of sample quadrats collected during the summer months of 2009, 2010 and 2011 at 31 lakes in Serbia. The nutrient indices (MSI) for 46 lake hydrophytes were calculated using the Reprediction Algorithm on N-Ellenberg's values. A Macrophyte …

Arabidopsis Scaffold Protein Rack1a Interacts With Diverse Environmental Stress And Photosynthesis Related Proteins, Hemayet Ullah

Department of Biology Faculty Publications

Scaffold proteins are known to regulate important cellular processes by interacting with multiple proteins to modulate molecular responses. RACK1 (Receptor for Activated C Kinase 1) is a WD-40 type scaffold protein, conserved in eukaryotes, from Chlamydymonas to plants and humans, expresses ubiquitously and plays regulatory roles in diverse signal transduction and stress response pathways. Here we present the use of Arabidopsis RACK1A, the predominant isoform of a 3-member family, as a bait to screen a split-ubiquitin based cDNA library. In total 97 proteins from dehydration, salt stress, ribosomal and photosynthesis pathways are found to potentially interact with RACK1A. False positive …

Complex Facilitation And Competition In A Temperate Grassland: Loss Of Plant Diversity And Elevated Co2 Have Divergent And Opposite Effects On Oak Establishment, Alexandra Wright, Stefan A. Schnitzer, Ian A. Dickie, Alex R. Gunderson, Gavriella A. Pinter, Scott A. Mangan, Peter B. Reich

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Encroachment of woody vegetation into grasslands is a widespread phenomenon that alters plant community composition and ecosystem function. Woody encroachment is often the result of fire suppression, but it may also be related to changes in resource availability associated with global environmental change. We tested the relative strength of three important global change factors (CO₂ enrichment, nitrogen deposition, and loss of herbaceous plant diversity) on the first 3 years of bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) seedling performance in a field experiment in central Minnesota, USA. We found that loss of plant diversity decreased initial oak survival but increased …

Distance And Sex Determine Host Plant Choice By Herbivorous Beetles, Daniel J. Ballhorn, Stefanie Kautz, Martin Heil

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Plants respond to herbivore damage with the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This indirect defense can cause ecological costs when herbivores themselves use VOCs as cues to localize suitable host plants. Can VOCs reliably indicate food plant quality to herbivores?

Methodology: We determined the choice behavior of herbivorous beetles (Chrysomelidae: Gynandrobrotica guerreroensis and Cerotoma ruficornis) when facing lima bean plants (Fabaceae: Phaseolus lunatus) with different cyanogenic potential, which is an important constitutive direct defense. Expression of inducible indirect defenses was experimentally manipulated by jasmonic acid treatment at different concentrations. The long-distance responses of male and female beetles to …

Astrocytes Modulate Microglial Phenotype And Dendritic Cell-Like Properties, Nischal K. Padala

Dissertations

Microglia are the resident immune cells of the CNS. In the healthy CNS, they express negligible levels of MHC II molecules as well as co-stimulatory molecules CD40, CD80 and CD86 necessary for antigen presentation to and activation of T cells. Co-stimulatory molecule expression can be induced in isolated microglia in vitro by sequential treatment with granulocyte monocyte colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) followed by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Upon such treatment, they become mature dendritic cells (DCs), capable of activating T cells. However, microglia are not isolated in life, but rather exist in an environment enriched by other cells, notably astrocytes.

Therefore, to determine …

Synthetic Lethality Of Chk1 Inhibition Combined With P53 And/Or P21 Loss During A Dna Damage Response In Normal And Tumor Cells, Sofia Origanti, Shi-Rong Cai, A. Z. Munir, Lynn S. White, Helen Piwnica-Worms

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Cell cycle checkpoints ensure genome integrity and are frequently compromised in human cancers. A therapeutic strategy being explored takes advantage of checkpoint defects in p53-deficient tumors in order to sensitize them to DNA-damaging agents by eliminating Chk1-mediated checkpoint responses. Using mouse models, we demonstrated that p21 is a key determinant of how cells respond to the combination of DNA damage and Chk1 inhibition (combination therapy) in normal cells as well as in tumors. Loss of p21 sensitized normal cells to the combination therapy much more than did p53 loss and the enhanced lethality was partially blocked by CDK inhibition. In …

Asian Primate Species Richness Correlates With Rainfall, Yi-Chen Wang, Amrita Srivathsan, Chen-Chieh Feng, Agus Salim, Myron Shekelle

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Previous studies of meta-analyses found significantly positive correlations between primate species richness and rainfall for Africa, Madagascar and the Neotropics, with the exception of Asia, leaving the open question whether that anomaly is the result of sampling bias, biogeography, or some other factor. This study re-examines the question using modelled data, with primate species richness data from the Southeast Asian Mammals Databank and rainfall data from the Climatic Research Unit. Data processing with Geographical Information Systems resulted in 390 sample points. Reduced major axis and ordinary least squares regressions were employed to examine the relationship for six regions, including the …

Exogenous Delivery Of Chaperonin Subunit Fragment Apicct1 Modulates Mutant Huntingtin Cellular Phenotypes, Emily M. Sontag, Lukasz A. Joachimiak, Zhiqun Tan, Anthony Tomlinson, David E. Housman, Charles G. Glabe, Steven G. Potkin, Judith Frydman, Leslie M. Thompson

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Aggregation of misfolded proteins is characteristic of a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Huntington disease (HD). The CCT/TRiC (chaperonin containing TCP-1/TCP-1 ring) chaperonin complex can inhibit aggregation and cellular toxicity induced by expanded repeat Huntingtin (mHtt) fragments. The substrate-binding apical domain of CCT/TRiC subunit CCT1, ApiCCT1, is sufficient to inhibit aggregation of expanded repeat mHtt fragments in vitro, providing therapeutic promise for HD. However, a key hurdle in considering ApiCCT1 as a potential treatment is in delivery. Because ApiCCT1 has a region of similarity to the HIV Tat protein cell-transduction domain, we tested whether recombinant ApiCCT1 (ApiCCT1r) protein could enter …

The Passiflora Tripartita (Banana Passion) Fruit: A Source Of Bioactive Flavonoid C-Glycosides Isolated By Hsccc And Characterized By Hplc–Dad–Esi/Ms/Ms, Mario J. Simirgiotis, Guillermo Schmeda-Hirschmann, Jorge Bórquez, Edward J. Kennelly

Publications and Research

The banana passion fruit (Passiflora tripartita Breiter, Passifloraceae) known as “tumbo” is very appreciated in tropical and subtropical countries of South America. Methanolic extracts from peel and the fruit juice of P. tripartita growing in Chile were analyzed for antioxidant capacity as well as for flavonoid and phenolic content. A chromatographic method was developed for the rapid identification of the main phenolics in the samples by HPLC-DAD and HPLC-MS. The fast fingerprint analysis allowed the detection of eighteen flavonoid C-glycosides and four flavonoid O-glycoside derivatives which were characterized by UV spectra and ESI-MS-MS analysis. Several of the C-glycosides detected are …

A Microarray Analysis Of Gene Expression Patterns During Early Phases Of Newt Lens Regeneration, Konstantinos Sousounis, Christian S. Michel, Marc Bruckskotten, Nobuyasu Maki, Thilo Borchardt, Thomas Braun, Mario Looso, Panagiotis A. Tsonis

Biology Faculty Publications

Purpose: Notophthalmus viridescens, the red-spotted newt, possesses tremendous regenerative capabilities. Among the tissues and organs newts can regenerate, the lens is regenerated via transdifferentiation of the pigment epithelial cells of the dorsal iris, following complete removal (lentectomy). Under normal conditions, the same cells from the ventral iris are not capable of regenerating. This study aims to further understand the initial signals of lens regeneration.

Reconstruction Of Family-Level Phylogenetic Relationships Within Demospongiae (Porifera) Using Nuclear Encoded Housekeeping Genes, Malcolm S. Hill, April Hill, Jose Lopez, Kevin J. Peterson

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: Demosponges are challenging for phylogenetic systematics because of their plastic and relatively simple morphologies and many deep divergences between major clades. To improve understanding of the phylogenetic relationships within Demospongiae, we sequenced and analyzed seven nuclear housekeeping genes involved in a variety of cellular functions from a diverse group of sponges.

Methodology/Principal Findings: We generated data from each of the four sponge classes (i.e., Calcarea, Demospongiae, Hexactinellida, and Homoscleromorpha), but focused on family-level relationships within demosponges. With data for 21 newly sampled families, our Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian-based approaches recovered previously phylogenetically defined taxa: Keratosap, Myxospongiaep, Spongillidap, Haploscleromorphap (the …

Revisiting The Relationship Between Regenerative Ability And Aging, Ashley W. Seifert, S. Randal Voss

Biology Faculty Publications

Contrary to the longstanding view that newts (Notophthalamus viridescens), but not axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum), can regenerate a lens, a recent report in BMC Biology by Panagiotis Tsonis and colleagues shows axolotls indeed possess this ability during early larval stages. In contrast, they show that zebrafish never posses this ability, even as embryos. This underscores the importance of comparing regenerative ability across species and reinforces the need to consider organ regeneration in the context of evolution, development, and aging.

Dictyostelium Development Shows A Novel Pattern Of Evolutionary Conservation, Xiangjun Tian, Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller

Biology Faculty Research

von Baer's law states that early stages of animal development are the most conserved. More recent evidence supports a modified "hourglass" pattern in which an early but somewhat later stage is most conserved. Both patterns have been explained by the relative complexity of either temporal or spatial interactions; the greatest conservation and lowest evolvability occur at the time of the most complex interactions, because these cause larger effects that are harder for selection to alter. This general kind of explanation might apply universally across independent multicellular systems, as supported by the recent finding of the hourglass pattern in plants. We …

Psychosine, The Cytotoxic Sphingolipid That Accumulates In Globoid Cell Leukodystrophy, Alters Membrane Architecture, Jacqueline Hawkins-Salsbury, Archana Parameswar, Xuntian Jiang, Paul Schlesinger, Ernesto Bongarzone, Daniel Ory, Alexei Demchenko, Mark Sands

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Works

Globoid cell leukodystrophy (GLD) is a neurological disease caused by deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme galactosylceramidase (GALC). In the absence of GALC, the cytotoxic glycosphingolipid, psychosine (psy), accumulates in the nervous system. Psychosine accumulation preferentially affects oligodendrocytes, leading to progressive demyelination and infiltration of activated monocytes/macrophages into the CNS. GLD is characterized by motor defects, cognitive deficits, seizures, and death by 2–5 years of age. It has been hypothesized that psychosine accumulation, primarily within lipid rafts, results in the pathogenic cascade in GLD. However, the mechanism of psychosine toxicity has yet to be elucidated. Therefore, we synthesized the enantiomer of …

Traversing Swanton Road, 11th Ed., James A. West

Academic, Government & Associated Organizational Research Resources

Situated at the northwest end of Santa Cruz County and occupying circa 30 square miles of sharply contrasted terrain, the Scott Creek Watershed concentrates within its geomorphological boundaries, at least 10-12% of California's flora, both native and introduced. Paradoxically, the use/abuse that the watershed has sustained over the past 140+ years, has not necessarily diminished the biodiversity and perhaps parallels the naturally disruptive but biologically energizing processes (fire, flooding, landslides and erosion), which have also been historically documented for the area for +60 years. This is an early edition of an extensive document by James A. West. Please visit the …

When Hawks Give Rise To Doves: The Evolution Of Enforcement Strategies, Omar Tonsi Eldakar, W. W. Driscoll, A. C. Gallup

Biology Faculty Articles

The question of how altruism can evolve despite its local disadvantage to selfishness has produced a wealth of theoretical and empirical research capturing the attention of scientists across disciplines for decades. One feature that has remained consistent through this outpouring of knowledge has been that researchers have looked to the altruists themselves for mechanisms by which altruism can curtail selfishness. An alternative perspective may be that just as altruists want to limit selfishness in the population, so may the selfish individuals themselves. These alternative perspectives have been most evident in the fairly recent development of enforcement strategies. Punishment can effectively …

04. Botany, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

02. Animal Science, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

09. Environmental Science, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

07. Criminal Justice, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

11. Genetics, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

08. Engineering, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

13. Mathematics, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

14. Optometry, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

16. Physics, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

17. Psychology, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

19. Zoology, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

06. Computer Science, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

03. Biology, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

05. Chemistry, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.