Cell and Developmental Biology Commons^™

Functional Analysis Provides Insight Into Missing Heritability, Scott L. Baughan, Michael A. Tainsky, Fatima Darwiche

Medical Student Research Symposium

Accurate ascertainment of genetic risk can be potentially lifesaving for patients who inherit cancer promoting mutations. However, even with the most extensive panel testing clinically available, a large number of patients will test negative despite family history of cancer or test positive for a variant of unknown significance (VUS). For these patients, clinical management is complicated; patients want to know their risk, and may fear disease they are not at great risk for (benign VUS) or they may not be given access to potentially lifesaving early screening procedures (pathogenic VUS). ATM has proven a challenge to clinicians due to its …

The Genetics Of Skin Cancer: What Genes Drive The Development Of Basal Cell Carcinoma, Squamous Cell Carcinoma, And Melanoma?, Cassandra Poole, Abagail Pack, Elizabeth Whitehead, Virginia Marshall

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

Skin cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer worldwide. The American Academy of Dermatology estimates that 9500 people in the United States are diagnosed with skin cancer every day, and that 1 in 5 Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer by age 70. With such a high prevalence of disease, understanding how skin cancer develops and how it can be treated is extremely important. This project aims to analyze the genes involved in the development of the three most common forms of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma.

Influence Of Myelin-Associated Glycoprotein On Axon Subtype Specific Sheath Targeting, Nazmus Sakib Khan

Ramaley Celebration

During the development of the Central Nervous System, oligodendrocytes wrap axons with myelin, which is necessary for rapid, efficient nerve impulse propagation. For reasons unknown, oligodendrocytes direct myelin to certain subtypes of axons, leaving others incompletely myelinated, or even totally unmyelinated. Previous studies demonstrated mice harboring Mag mutations showed improper sheath targeting of myelin to axons indicating that MAG is a possible facilitator of axon-glia communication.

In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that loss of mag decreases the proportion of myelin directed towards specific axon subtypes. To test this, we perturbed Mag function in zebrafish embryos using knockdown …

Changes In The Proliferation And Gene Expression Of Huvecs In Response To Treatment With Plant Secondary Metabolites, Caleigh Howard

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Medicinal plants have historically been a valuable source of new drugs, and Southern California possesses a rich collection of native plants which have been used as medicines by native people groups for thousands of years. Angiogenesis is the biological process of new blood-vessel growth from endothelial cells. It is an essential part of the wound-healing process, and increased angiogenesis has also been implicated in the growth of some types of cancerous tumors. In this study, extracts of the Southern Californian native plants Red shanks (Adenostoma sparsifolium) and the alkaloid extract of Jimson weed (Datura wrightii) were …

C-Myc’S Role On Methylation Of The Gata-2 Gene In Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma, Jonathan D. Hajduk

Student Scholar Showcase

Lung cancer accounts for more deaths per year than any other form of cancer, resulting in a total of 158,000 deaths per year in the U.S. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is diagnosed in greater than 224,000 Americans every year. Methylation and subsequent downregulation of certain genes has been directly linked to the uncontrolled growth of NSCLC cells. Natural killer (NK) cells are key innate immune cells responsible for apoptosis of cells with incorrect genetic code. It is believed that one component of uncontrolled NSCLC growth is due to the NK cells’ inability to detect errors within NSCLC cells. Perhaps …

Analysis Of The Chondroitinase Operon Of Flavobacterium Columnare, Erin L. Sorlien

Senior Honors Projects

Analysis of the chondroitinase operon of Flavobacterium columnare

Erin Sorlien

Major

Cell and Molecular Biology, Chemistry

Advisor

Dr. David R. Nelson

Date

May 2, 2013

Keywords

Flavobacterium columnare, columnaris disease, chondroitin AC lyase, complementation, csl operon

Abstract
Flavobacterium columnare, an opportunistic bacterial pathogen of fish, is the causative agent of columnaris disease (CD). The bacterium is a Gram-negative rod that exhibits gliding motility and avidly forms biofilms. CD affects both wild and cultured freshwater fish, and continues to cause large economic losses to the fish farming industry. According to an investigation conducted by the National Animal Health Monitoring System, CD …