Biotechnology Commons^™

Integrative Genomic Insights Into Coral Resilience: Adaptive And Acclimatory Responses To Seasonal Environmental Shifts, Tasnim Ghanim

Theses and Dissertations

Coral reefs, critical to marine biodiversity and coastal protection, face escalating threats from climate change-related phenomena such as ocean warming. This warming is leading to widespread thermal stress that contributes to coral bleaching and infectious disease in corals, leading to the disruption of marine ecosystems and the economies that depend on them. Focusing on the brain coral Platygyra daedalea, known for its thermal resilience in the Persian Arabian Gulf—a region that exemplifies the extreme stressors of climate change—our study aims to dissect the genetic, transcriptomic, and microbiological underpinnings of coral survival in high-temperature environments predicted for the end of …

Cytotoxic Activity Of Salvia Officinalis Extract Mediated By The Inhibition Of Jak2 In Breast Cancer, Salma Alawadi Dawood

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Breast cancer is the most common type of invasive cancer in women in their forties and fifties. Recent evidence suggests that JAK2/STAT3 signaling is constitutively active in breast cancer. Previous studies suggest that plant extracts, including Salvia Officinalis, have strong cytotoxic effects on breast cancer cells. The differential expression of miRNAs is also strongly linked to cancer development.

Aim: In the current study, we hypothesize that S. Officinalis extract suppresses JAK2 expression and has strong anticancer potential in MCF7 breast cancer cell lines.

Methods: GC-MS analysis showed the presence of flavonoids in dried leaf of …

Association Of Gut Microbiota Composition With Alzheimer’S-Like Disease In A Rat Model, Hana Heiba

Theses and Dissertations

With many countries turning ‘grey’ and facing an issue with aging populations, the risk of developing one form of neurodegenerative disease is increasing. Dementia, being the most common syndrome resulting from neurodegeneration, severely affects memory and cognitive functions. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder, with an estimated 615,000 new cases will be added to the existing 5.7 million by 2030 (Alkasir et al., 2017).

In the current study, we establish a sporadic AD-like rat model by injecting STZ intracerebrally. Stool samples were collected at two time points; after three weeks for the acute stage, and 3 months …

Characterization Of Testis-Derived Mesenchymal Cells And The Hunt For Universal Stemness Markers, Myret Ghabriel

Theses and Dissertations

Mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells residing in multiple tissues with the capacity for self-renewal and differentiation into various cell types. Due to the myriad sources of MSCs the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT) proposed certain criteria for their characterization. Here, we isolate adult MSCs from mouse testes and demonstrate that these testis-derived MSCs (tMSCs) follow some of the ISCT’s criteria. tMSCs expressed the MSCs surface markers CD44, CD73, and CD29 and lacked the expression of the hematopoietic cell marker CD45. Moreover, the cells displayed the capacity for self-renewal and in vitro differentiation into adipocytes. Since the isolation …

A Predictive Model For Geographical Location Using Microbiome Composition And Covid-19 Based Analysis, Ahmed Adel Aboushanab

Theses and Dissertations

The human microbiome is a main contributor for the health and welfare of the human body. It is affected by many factors like diet and hygiene. These factors differ between different populations. Testing the population-microbiome differences using healthy samples from different countries is the first objective of this study. This data was then used in training and testing machine learning models (Random Forest and L2-logistic Regression Classifiers) for the prediction of the geographical location based on the microbiome data. Random Forest Classifier had the highest accuracy. Feature importance analysis showed that the data for Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes improved the …

Insights Into Halophilic Microbial Adaptation: Analysis Of Integrons And Associated Genomic Structures And Characterization Of A Nitrilase In Hypersaline Environments, Sarah Sonbol

Theses and Dissertations

Hypersaline environments are extreme habitats that can be exploited as biotechnological resources. Here, we characterized a nitrilase (NitraS-ATII) isolated from Atlantis II Deep brine pool. It showed higher thermal stability and heavy metal tolerance compared to a closely related nitrilase.

We also studied integrons in halophiles and hypersaline environments. Integrons are genetic platforms in which an integron integrase (IntI) mediates the excision and integration of gene cassettes at specific recombination sites. In order to search for integrons in halophiles and hypersaline metagenomes, we used a PCR-based approach, in addition to different bioinformatics tools, mainly IntegronFinder.

We found that integrons and …

Mining Selected Metagenomes/Metatranscriptomes For Biosynthetic Gene Clusters And Antimicrobial Resistance Genes, Ahmed Yamany

Theses and Dissertations

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the serious global challenges in the current century. The fact that resistance genes transfer between bacteria, coupled with the fact that the world is connected through complex dynamics. Studying microbial behavior and understanding the different factors coffering microbial resistance to a broad spectrum of the available drug classes, parallel with a comprehensive analysis of the natural microbial products as the primary source of the novel antibiotics, might shed some light on solutions for this problem. Microbial environments harbor a wide range of secondary metabolites (SM) with different functional groups. SMs are not directly involved in …