Biology Commons^™

Biochemical Charactrization Of A Fructosyltransferase Enzyme From A Halophilic Archaeon, Haloarcula Marismotui, For Biotechnological Applications, Ahlam Khalifa Al Ameri

Theses

Fructosyltransferase enzymes are involved in the production of fructans, which are polymers of fructose and naturally present in many foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, and cereals. Fructans with short chain lengths are called Fructooligosaccharides (FOS), which are small dietary fibers having low caloric values and are known as “prebiotics”. Fructans have a broad range of applications in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and chemical industries. They have unique physiochemical properties and functionalities depending on the source of enzyme used for their production. The present study aimed at the utilization of a recently discovered unique fructosyltransferase enzyme from an extremely halophilic microorganism, …

Modulation Of Chronic Allergic Contact Dermatitis Through B Cells, Sara Saeed Alhmoudi

Theses

Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) is a common inflammatory disease caused by contact with an allergen and is a T-cell-mediated type IV hypersensitivity reaction. Shortchain fatty acids (SCFAs) showed the ability to modulate immune cells in case of inflammation. Pentanoate is one of the abundant SCFA that showed therapeutic ability by inducing interleukin-10 (IL-10) secretion in lymphocytes. IL-10-producing regulatory B cells have been shown to decrease different inflammatory responses; however, the overall role of B cells in ACD is not well studied. This project aims to explore the role of B cells during chronic ACD and their modulation with the SCFA …

Foxo1 Promotes The Expression Of Canonical Wnt Target Genes In Examined Basal-Like Breast And Glioblastoma Multiforme Cancer Cells, Shania Pintor, Alma Lopez, David Flores, Brianda Lozoya, Bipul Soti, Rishi Pokhrel, Joaquin Negrete, Michael W. Persans, Robert Gilkerson, Bonnie Gunn, Megan Keniry

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Basal-like breast cancer (BBC) and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) are aggressive cancers associated with poor prognosis. BBC and GBM have stem cell-like gene expression signatures, which are in part driven by forkhead box O (FOXO) transcription factors. To gain further insight into the impact of FOXO1 in BBC, we treated BT549 cells with AS1842856 and performed RNA sequencing. AS1842856 binds to unphosphorylated FOXO1 and inhibits its ability to directly bind to DNA. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis indicated that a set of WNT pathway target genes, including lymphoid enhancer-binding factor 1 (LEF1) and transcription factor 7 (TCF7), were …

The Evolutionary Responses Of Life-History Strategies To Climatic Variability In Flowering Plants, James Boyko, Eric R. Hagen, Jeremy M. Beaulieu, Thais Vasconcelos

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

• The evolution of annual or perennial strategies in flowering plants likely depends on a broad array of temperature and precipitation variables. Previous documented climate life-history correlations in explicit phylogenetic frameworks have been limited to certain clades and geographic regions.
• To gain insights which generalize to multiple lineages we employ a multi-clade approach analyzing 32 groups of angiosperms across eight climatic variables. We utilize a recently developed method that accounts for the joint evolution of continuous and discrete traits to evaluate two hypotheses: annuals tend to evolve in highly seasonal regions prone to extreme heat and drought; and annuals tend to …

Big Boned: How Fat Storage And Other Adaptations Influenced Large Theropod Foraging Ecology, Cameron Pahl, Luis A. Ruedas

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Dinosaur foraging ecology has been the subject of scientific interest for decades, yet much of what we understand about it remains hypothetical. We wrote an agent-based model (ABM) to simulate meat energy sources present in dinosaur environments, including carcasses of giant sauropods, along with living, huntable prey. Theropod dinosaurs modeled in this environment (specifically allosauroids, and more particularly, Allosaurus Marsh, 1877) were instantiated with heritable traits favorable to either hunting success or scavenging success. If hunter phenotypes were more reproductively successful, their traits were propagated into the population through their offspring, resulting in predator specialists. If selective pressure favored scavenger …

Germ Cell Recovery, Cryopreservation And Transplantation In The California White Sturgeon, Acipenser Transmontanus, Amie L. Romney, Danielle M. Myers, Fatima R. Martin, Tawney N. Scanlan, Stuart A. Meyers

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) is the largest freshwater fish in North America. Because of the unique life history characteristics of sturgeon, including longevity, late maturation and long spawning intervals, their aquaculture can be a significant investment of resources. As a result of habitat loss and overharvesting, natural populations of white sturgeon are threatened and there is a growing effort to improve conservation aquaculture programs. Germ cell transplantation is an innovative technology previously demonstrated in a variety of fish species to be able to produce a surrogate broodstock. The technique relies upon optimal donor germ cell recovery and transplantation into …

Drivers Of Plankton Community Structure In Intermittent And Continuous Coastal Upwelling Systems–From Microbes And Microscale In-Situ Imaging To Large Scale Patterns, Moritz Schmid, Su Sponaugle, Anne W. Thompson, Kelly T. Sutherland, Robert Cowen

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Eastern Boundary Systems support major fisheries whose early life stages depend on upwelling production. Upwelling can be highly variable at the regional scale, with substantial repercussions for new productivity and microbial loop activity. Studies that integrate the classic trophic web based on new production with the microbial loop are rare due to the range in body forms and sizes of the taxa. Underwater imaging can overcome this limitation, and with machine learning, enables fine resolution studies spanning large spatial scales. We used the In-situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System (ISIIS) to investigate the drivers of plankton community structure in the northern California …

Coordinated Regulation Of Myonuclear Dna Methylation, Mrna, And Mirna Levels Associates With The Metabolic Response To Rapid Synergist Ablation-Induced Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy In Female Mice, Ahmed Ismaeel, Nicholas T. Thomas, Mariah Mccashland, Sebastian Edman, Johanna T. Lanner, Vandré C. Figueiredo, Christopher S. Fry, John J. Mccarthy, Yuan Wen, Kevin A. Murach, Ferdinand Von Walden

Health, Human Performance and Recreation Faculty Publications and Presentations

The central dogma of molecular biology dictates the general flow of molecular information from DNA that leads to a functional cellular outcome. In skeletal muscle fibers, the extent to which global myonuclear transcriptional alterations, accounting for epigenetic and post-transcriptional influences, contribute to an adaptive stress response is not clearly defined. In this investigation, we leveraged an integrated analysis of the myonucleus-specific DNA methylome and transcriptome, as well as myonuclear small RNA profiling to molecularly define the early phase of skeletal muscle fiber hypertrophy. The analysis of myonucleus-specific mature microRNA and other small RNA species provides new directions for exploring muscle …

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Derived From Patients Carrying Mitochondrial Mutations Exhibit Altered Bioenergetics And Aberrant Differentiation Potential, Fibi Meshrkey, Kelly M. Scheulin, Christopher M. Littlejohn, Joshua Stabach, Bibhuti Saikia, Vedant Thorat, Yimin Huang, Thomas Laframboise, Edward J. Lesnefsky, Raj R. Rao, Franklin D. West, Shilpa Iyer

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Human mitochondrial DNA mutations are associated with common to rare mitochondrial disorders, which are multisystemic with complex clinical pathologies. The pathologies of these diseases are poorly understood and have no FDA-approved treatments leading to symptom management. Leigh syndrome (LS) is a pediatric mitochondrial disorder that affects the central nervous system during early development and causes death in infancy. Since there are no adequate models for understanding the rapid fatality associated with LS, human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) technology has been recognized as a useful approach to generate patient-specific stem cells for disease modeling and understanding the origins of the …

It’S All About Fishing: Robert Ellis Jenkins (1940-2023) And His Life Among Freshwater Fishes Of Virginia And The Redhorse Suckers, Eric J. Hilton

Southeastern Fishes Council Proceedings

Robert (Bob) Ellis Jenkins passed away in Salem, Virginia, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. Bob was born February 9, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, Bob took an early interest in natural history, and was a particularly avid fisherman. He attended Roanoke College (Salem, VA) as an undergraduate and entered into a Masters degree program at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), only to leave before finishing for a position at the NOAA Systematics Lab based at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. He eventually became faculty at his alma mater, Roanoke College, where he would spend virtually …

Synaptic Proteins Involved In Reward-Based Plasticity, Cameron Martinez, Christian Wesselborg, Hey-Kyoung Lee Ph.D

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

My research focused on synaptic proteins involved in reward-based plasticity. More specifically, my aim sought to expand brain tissue in order to resolve the problem of distinguishing between synapses. This process involved using different biological assays.

Clear Vision Center Of South Florida Biol 4990 - Independent Study In Biology, Bita Sabripour

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

During my internship at Clear Vision Center of South Florida, I had the opportunity to shadow and work alongside Dr. Bita Sabripour to examine and provide eye care services to patients. I learned various clinical practices including taking patients' history, working the front desk, taking inventory, placing orders, selling frames, assisting patients, and keeping the office running. In addition, I ran the clinic's social media platforms and was in charge of communication with various manufacturers and sales representatives. I also volunteered with the associated nonprofit organization, See Your Future, which provides free eye care and services to the underprivileged and …

Dietary Interventions During Chemotherapy Treatment: A Systematic Review Of Feasibility, Safety, And Efficacy, Shalet James, Alexie Oppermann, Amber S. Kleckner

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

Chemotherapy is a mainstay for cancer treatment. However, chemotherapy is associated with side effects that can significantly limit a person's physical and cognitive functioning, both reducing quality of life and leading to dose reductions of life-saving treatment. Dietary interventions may help manage and reduce the side effects of chemotherapy through biological and psychological mechanisms. While there is preliminary evidence supporting the importance of nutrition in cancer care, current guidelines are vague except for minimum calorie and protein intake to prevent malnutrition. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of dietary interventions on health …

Minimum Blockers Of 123-Avoiding Permutation Matrices, Megan Bennett

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

A blocker of 123-avoiding permutation matrices refers to the set of zeros contained within an 𝑛 × 𝑛 123-forcing matrix. Recently, Brualdi and Cao provided a characterization of all minimal blockers, which are blockers with a cardinality of 𝑛. Building upon their work, a new type of blocker, flag-shaped blockers, which can be seen as a generalization of the 𝐿-shaped blockers defined by Brualdi and Cao, are introduced. It is demonstrated that all flag-shaped blockers are minimum blockers, and the shifting of positions from these blockers is discussed. Lastly, the dimensions of subpolytopes that are defined by flag-shaped blockers are …

Introduction To Protein Modeling, Jordan Nichole Carreras, Juhi Dalal, Ryan Luib, Omar Saleh, Pranav Neravetla, Shreya Averinini

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

HONR 1010G: Introduction to Protein Modeling is a course-based research opportunity focused on telling a “protein story” using a 3dprinted model developed by students working in research groups studying the literature and available protein database files. The course is open to honors students at all levels and majors. Throughout the semester, students work to develop a 3D printed model that explains how the protein works. This is done through using computational tools with protein database file published through the protein data bank (https://www.rcsb.org/) such as Jmol & Pymol, scientific literature and 3D protein models. In addition to creating the 3dprinted …

Investigating The Gut Microbiota Of Skeleton Shrimp, Jason Rosales

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

No abstract provided.

How Did The Covid-19 Pandemic Impact Anatomy And Physiology Education Worldwide, Sneh Patel, Sean Mahajan, Santanu De

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

No abstract provided.

Sea-Phages Research, Bianca Gonzalez

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and kill bacteria and there is an abundant amount of them in the world. They have been recently utilized in biotechnological applications including their use in combating antibiotic resistance and bioremediation of oil spills. Through the SEA-PHAGES program, my goal (along with my team) was to discover and isolate bacteriophages found in soil and analyze their full genome sequences

Md Anderson Internship: Targeting Il-27rα In Ovarian Cancer, Meghana Kavarthapu

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

We utilized a novel explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) approach to identify Interleukin-27 Receptor α (IL-27Rα) as a potential therapeutic target for high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) patients based on the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. High expression of IL-27Rα was found to be significantly correlated with poorer survival in HGSC patients. To investigate its therapeutic potential, we silenced IL-27Rα in murine HGSC cells lines using siRNA and assessed its impact on tumor proliferation, migration, invasion, and angiogenesis. Our results demonstrated that IL-27Rα siRNA effectively reduced its expression, as confirmed by Western Blot analysis, and significantly attenuated proliferation by clonogenic …

Florida's Summer Institute In Biostatistics And Data Science Program Experience, David Giordano

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

The Summer Institute in Biostatistics and Data Science, sponsored by the NHLBI and NIAID, offers a comprehensive six to seven-week training program. This program provides classroom instruction, career mentoring, and hands-on data analysis using clinical study data related to infectious, immune-mediated, and chronic diseases. It's designed to address the increasing demand for biostatisticians and data scientists, targeting undergraduates and early graduate students to consider graduate programs in these fields. The curriculum includes intensive biostatistical training, introducing students to statistical methods' principles and applications in biomedical and clinical research.

Pre-Health Professional Volunteer, Divya Papaiya

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

I participated in the esteemed Pre-Health Professional Volunteer Program at Penn Medicine Princeton Health over this summer from May to August. Through this program, I was able to rotate through various departments in the hospital ranging from – but not limited to – Radiation Oncology to the Pathology/Blood Bank Lab. Along with completing my rotations, I was a part of a close-knit cohort that was able to attend special lectures dedicated to a variety of healthcare topics such as medical treatment inequality and disparity, EMS services, organ donation, and medical examiner (autopsy) recognition cases. Despite being part of a specialized …

Big 5 Conservation Internship, Bernhard Riegl

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

The Discover Eden Big 5 Ecology and Conservation course is located in South Africa. Through a series of first-hand experiences and lectures, one learns much about Conservation and what it really is. By working with Ecologists, Conservationists, and Veterinarians, you gain insight into these professions and what they entail

Summer 2023 Graz Internship, Eleanor Wind, Alex Pope

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

The summer 2023 Graz Internship was a comprehensive medical internship which exposed us to both surgical and clinical sides of medicine. Over the course of 6 weeks we were able to observe a variety of operations and even scrub in and assist. Clinical skills acquired included IV placement, phlebotomy, laparoscopy, suturing and surgical knot tying. In addition to experience gained in the hospital, we learned the basics of international travel, citywide navigation in multiple cities, European culture, and ate quite a bit of good food. We were fortunate enough to meet a network of medical students and doctors from other …

Science Alive, Adam Sadik, Pranav Madadi, Mahalaxmi Some, Lohita Sunkara, Ashley Abad, Lickchina Jeanlis

Trick to the Treat of Internships and Research

Through the Science Alive outreach program, we work to bring the excitement of hands-on learning to grade-school children and the entire community. Science Alive promotes science education and interaction between the college and grade school community as “science buddies”. Group leaders can earn Science Alive internship credit and serve as volunteers with Broward County public schools. There are a variety of ways NSU students are involved in this internship program. We have a regular schedule of leading students once per week on Friday afternoons at Nova Blanche Elementary through NSU student-led activities to explore science. We also have been building …

Examining The Role Of Microglia In Diabetic Retinopathy: Phenotypes, Mechanisms, And Therapies, Charles W. Pfeifer

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Retinal microglia activation and function is a pivotal component of ocular disease pathology, but their involvement in diabetic retinopathy, a complex neurovascular complication of diabetes, remains unclear. The purpose of this thesis work is to thoroughly examine features of microglia activation in DR, identify mechanistic underpinnings of their contributions to neuroinflammatory features of disease pathogenesis, and assess immunotherapeutic targeting of microglia as a potential approach to treating early-stage DR. Here, we show that chronic hyperglycemia elicits morphological, ultrastructural, and transcriptional changes in retinal microglia during early-stage DR while other elements of the retinal neurovascular unit remain unperturbed. Through chronic ablation …

Genome Sequences Of Six Cluster Ct And Two Cluster Dj Bacteriophages That Infect Gordonia Rubripertincta, Xavier F. Rodriguez, Daniel C. Williams, Catherine P. Chia

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

We report the genome sequences of eight bacteriophages isolated using Gordonia rubripertincta NRRL B-16540-SEA. Based on gene content similarity to phages in the Actinobacteriophage database, six of the phages are assigned to phage cluster CT while two are assigned to cluster DJ.

Effects Of A Major Hurricane On Dynamics, Structure, And Composition Of Mississippi River Delta Forests, Lance C. Umlang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tropical cyclones recurrently influence coastal forests worldwide. Tree survival (resistance) and post-cyclone recruitment (resilience) can vary with cyclone intensity, producing differences in composition, arboreal structure, and dynamics among affected forests. Studies of tropical cyclone wind effects on coastal forests typically emphasize damage more than post-cyclone responses. We hypothesized that intense cyclones might produce large, stratum-dependent effects that prevent affected forests from returning to pre-storm conditions. We explored direct effects of major Hurricane Katrina and post-hurricane changes in oak-dominated bottomland and cypress/tupelo-dominated swamp forests within the inactive portion of the Mississippi River deltaic plain. Overall mortality was high (14-25%) but concentrated …

Multiple Light Signaling Pathways Control Solar Tracking In Sunflowers, Christopher J. Brooks, Hagop S. Atamian, Stacey L. Harmer

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Sunflowers are famous for their ability to track the sun throughout the day and then reorient at night to face east the following morning. This occurs by differential growth patterns, with the east sides of stems growing more during the day and the west sides of stems growing more at night. This process, termed heliotropism, is generally believed to be a specialized form of phototropism; however, the underlying mechanism is unknown. To better understand heliotropism, we compared gene expression patterns in plants undergoing phototropism in a controlled environment and in plants initiating and maintaining heliotropic growth in the field. We …

Evaluating The Utility Of S100a8/A9 As A Non-Invasive Biomarker, Leah Mellett

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Biomarkers, a portmanteau of “biological markers”, are clinically relevant observations that can accurately and reproducibly indicate or predict patient outcomes. These objective measurements have vast clinical utility as they can aid clinicians with diagnoses, provide information about patient prognoses, and monitor changes in patient health statuses. While the discovery of several biomarkers are attributed to differential expression or concentration of genes or proteins within blood samples, biomarkers can be alternatively found in other bodily fluids or tissues depending on the associated condition. Recently, advances in urine proteomics have allowed for the identification of urine biomarkers that may eliminate the drawbacks …

On The Origin Of Aids: Card8’S Role In Pathogenesis And Cure, Kolin Clark

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

HIV infection remains a major global health burden with 1.7 million new acquisitions and 770,000 deaths in 2018 alone. While these numbers are declining due to antiretroviral therapy, only a handful of individuals have achieved complete remission from HIV. With the advent of antiretroviral therapy, HIV has turned a death sentence into a chronic, manageable condition. However, current antiretroviral therapies have only been studied on their ability to block infection and have not been able to clear the viral reservoir. Additionally, HIV cure strategies often rely upon sensing of highly variable epitopes such as the HIV envelope and have not …