Biotechnology Commons^™

A Cell Biology Laboratory Exercise To Study Sub-Cellular Organelles In Drosophila, Meghana Tare, Amit Singh

Biology Faculty Publications

The fast-changing scenario of undergraduate education puts emphasis on introducing students to hands-on techniques as part of their laboratory courses. In order to cater to large numbers of students and the time constraints involved with undergraduate level laboratory courses, there is a need for development of experiments that are cost effective and can be completed in a defined time frame. We have devised a laboratory exercise for teaching cell biology using the Drosophila melanogaster model. Drosophila can be reared in a short period of time in a cost effective manner. We used Drosophila tissue to study the sub-cellular organization of …

Molecular Characterisation Of A Bovine-Like Rotavirus Detected From A Giraffe, Emily Mulherin, Jill Bryan, Marijke Beltman, Luke O'Grady, Eugene Pidgeon, Lucie Garon, Andrew Lloyd, John Bainbridge, Helen O'Shea, Paul Whyte, Séamus Fanning

Department of Biological Sciences Publications

Background

Rotavirus (RV), is a member of the Reoviridae family and an important etiological agent of acute viral gastroenteritis in the young. Rotaviruses have a wide host range infecting a broad range of animal species, however little is known about rotavirus infection in exotic animals. In this paper we report the first characterisation of a RV strain from a giraffe calf.

Results

This report describes the identification and detailed molecular characterisation of a rotavirus strain detected from a 14-day-old Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), presenting with acute diarrhea. The RV strain detected from the giraffe was characterized molecularly as G10P[11]. …

Metabolic Engineering Of A Thermophilic Bacterium To Produce Ethanol At High Yield, A. Joe Shaw, Kara K. Podkaminer, Sunil G. Desai, John S. Bardsley, Stephen R. Rogers, Philip G. Thorne, David A. Hogsett, Lee R. Lynd

Dartmouth Scholarship

We report engineering Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum, a thermophilic anaerobic bacterium that ferments xylan and biomass-derived sugars, to produce ethanol at high yield. Knockout of genes involved in organic acid formation (acetate kinase, phosphate acetyltransferase, and L-lactate dehydrogenase) resulted in a strain able to produce ethanol as the only detectable organic product and substantial changes in electron flow relative to the wild type. Ethanol formation in the engineered strain (ALK2) utilizes pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase with electrons transferred from ferredoxin to NAD(P), a pathway different from that in previously described microbes with a homoethanol fermentation. The homoethanologenic phenotype was stable for >150 generations …

A Kinetic Model For Growth And Biosynthesis Of Medium-Chain-Length Poly-(3-Hydroxyalkanoates) In Pseudomonas Putida, Irene Tan Kit Ping

Irene Tan Kit Ping

A kinetic model is presented giving a mathematical description of batch culture of Pseudomonas putida PGA1 grown using saponified palm kernel oil as carbon source and ammonium as the limiting nutrient. The growth of the micro-organism is well-described using. Tessier-type model which takes into account the inhibitory effect of ammonium at high concentrations. The ammonium consumption rate by the cells is related ill proportion to the rate of growth. The intracellular production of medium-chain-length poly(3-hydroxyalkanoates) (PHA(MCL)) by P. putida PGA1 cells is reasonably modeled by the modified Luedeking-Piret kinetics, which incorporate a function of product Synthesis inhibition (or reduction) by …

A Tale Of Two Investigations In Molecular Biology: The Use Of Pcr Technology To Identify Bacteria Containing Genes For Pha Synthesis And The Antibiotic Sensitivity Profile Of Vibrio Species B-18, Diana B. Lizarazo

Honors Projects

The Vibrio species, B-18, produces PHA, a bacterial storage material with application as a biodegradable plastic. Phase one of this project aimed at determining if PCR technology could be used to find other bacteria that produce a similar type of PHA. Results showed that the primer sets utilized were not able to identify bacteria with PHA genes. Phase two hoped to discover if it would be possible to introduce Escherichia coli plasmids into B-18 using electroporation. Results demonstrated that electroporation was not useful for introducing plasmids into B-18.