Cell and Developmental Biology Commons^™

Review Of The Family Rivulidae (Cyprinodontiformes, Aplocheiloidei) And A Molecular And Morphological Phylogeny Of The Annual Fish Genus Austrolebias Costa 1998, Marcelo Loureiro, Rafael O. De Sá, Sebastián W. Serra, Felipe Alonso, Luis Esteban Krause Lanés, Matheus Vieira Volcan, Pablo Calviño, Dalton Nielsen, Alejandro Duarte, Graciela Garcia

Biology Faculty Publications

The family Rivulidae is the fourth most diverse clade of Neotropical fishes. Together with some genera of the related African family Nothobranchiidae, many rivulids exhibit a characteristic annual life cycle, with diapausing eggs and delayed embryonic development, which allows them to survive in the challenging seasonal ponds that they inhabit. Rivulidae also includes two species known as the only the self-fertilizing vertebrates and some species with internal fertilization. The first goal of this article is to review the systematics of the family considering phylogenetic relationships and synapomorphies of subfamilial clades, thus unifying information that is dispersed throughout the literature. From …

Genome-Wide Screening Identifies Genes And Biological Processes Implicated In Chemoresistance And Oncogene-Induced Apoptosis, Tengyu Ko

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Anti-proliferative responses such as senescence and apoptosis are often used by normal cells to combat oncogenic insults and to prevent tumorigenesis. However, oncogenic mutations are frequently found in cancers, suggesting that additional mutations may occur to facilitate the bypass of these anti-proliferative responses. It is believed that some of these additional mutations may also contribute to the chemoresistance of cancers. This dissertation focused on identifying novel genes and biological processes implicated in chemoresistance and tumorigenesis.

Cisplatin-based chemotherapeutic regimens are frequently used for treatments of solid tumors. However, tumor cells may have inherent or acquired resistance to cisplatin, and the underlying …

Unravelling The Structure Of Glycosyl Cations Via Cold-Ion Infrared Spectroscopy, Eike Mucha, Mateusz Marianski, Fei-Fei Xu, Daniel A. Thomas, Gerard Meijer, Gert Von Helden, Peter H. Seeberger, Kevin Pagel

Publications and Research

Glycosyl cations are the key intermediates during the glycosylation reaction that covalently links building blocks during the synthetic assembly of carbohydrates. The exact structure of these ions remained elusive due to their transient and short-lived nature. Structural insights into the intermediate would improve our understanding of the reaction mechanism of glycosidic bond formation. Here, we report an in-depth structural analysis of glycosyl cations using a combination of cold-ion infrared spectroscopy and first-principles theory. Participating C2 protective groups form indeed a covalent bond with the anomeric carbon that leads to C1-bridged acetoxonium-type structures. The resulting bicyclic structure strongly distorts the ring, …

Novel Cell-Based Model Of The Generation And Maintenance Of The Shape And Structure Of The Multi-Layered Shoot Apical Meristem Of Arabidopsis Thaliana, Mikahl Banwarth-Kuhn, Ali Nematbakhsh, Stephen Snipes, Kevin Rodriguez, Carolyn Rasmussen, G. Venugopala Reddy, Mark Alber

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Mathematical Modeling And Simulation With Deep Learning Methods Of Cancer Growth For Patient-Specific Therapy, Vishal Kobla, Joshua P. Smith, Pranav Unni, Padmanabhan Seshaiyer

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Stochastic Difference Model For Evolutional Dynamics Of Large Antigen Repertoires In African Trypanosomes, Fan Yu

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

In Vitro And Ex-Vivo Evaluation Of Topical Formulations Designed To Minimize Transdermal Absorption Of Vitamin K1, Ramina Nabiee, Barent Dubois, Laura Green, Ajay Sharma, Siu Fun Wong, Hamidreza Montazeri Aliabadi

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Topical application of Vitamin K1 has been demonstrated to effectively treat papulopustular skin rash, a serious and frequently encountered side effect of Epidermal Growth Factor Inhibitors (EGFRIs). Systemic absorption of vitamin K1 from skin and the resultant consequence of antagonizing EGFRIs anticancer effects jeopardizes the clinical acceptability of this rather effective treatment. The purpose of the present study was to rationally formulate and evaluate the release rate and transdermal absorption of a wide range of Vitamin K1 dermal preparations with a variety of physiochemical properties. A library of 33 formulations with were compounded and tested for Vitamin K1 permeation using …

8th Annual Postdoctoral Science Symposium, University Of Texas Md Anderson Cancer Center Postdoctoral Association

Annual Postdoctoral Science Symposium Abstracts

The mission of the Annual Postdoctoral Science Symposium (APSS) is to provide a platform for talented postdoctoral fellows throughout the Texas Medical Center to present their work to a wider audience. The MD Anderson Postdoctoral Association convened its inaugural Annual Postdoctoral Science Symposium (APSS) on August 4, 2011.

The APSS provides a professional venue for postdoctoral scientists to develop, clarify, and refine their research as a result of formal reviews and critiques of faculty and other postdoctoral scientists. Additionally, attendees discuss current research on a broad range of subjects while promoting academic interactions and enrichment and developing new collaborations.

Involvement Of Jak/Stat Signaling And A Basement Membrane-Associated Protein During Air Sac Primordium Development In Drosophila Melanogaster, Nathan Anthony Powers

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Tumor metastasis currently presents the greatest obstacle for effective cancer remediation. Metastatic growth necessitates both degradation of a specialized form of extracellular matrix (ECM) known as the basement membrane (BM) and the invasion of surrounding tissues thereafter. The thoracic air sacs of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), which develop and operate in a fashion comparable to the human lung, provide a unique model for identifying and characterizing factors that contribute to its own development as well as tumoral invasion. We investigated the involvement of both Janus kinase (JAK)/Signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) signaling and a BMassociated protein during the …

Cysteine Residues Contribute To The Dimerization And Enzymatic Activity Of Human Nuclear Dutp Nucleotidohydrolase (Ndut)., Shawna M Rotoli, Julia L Jones, Salvatore J Caradonna

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

dUTPase is an enzyme found in all organisms that have thymine as a constituent of DNA. Through evolution, humans have two major isoforms of dUTPase: a mitochondrial (mDut) and a nuclear (nDut) isoform. The nuclear isoform of dUTPase is a 164-amino-acids-long protein containing three cysteine residues. nDut's starting methionine is post-translationally cleaved, leaving four unique amino acids on its amino-terminus including one cysteine residue (C3). These are not present in the mitochondrial isoform (mDut). Using mass spectrometry analyses of recombinant dUTPase constructs, we have discovered an intermolecular disulfide bridge between cysteine-3 of each nDut monomer. We have found that these …

Als Yeast Models-Past Success Stories And New Opportunities, Sonja E. Di Gregorio, Martin L. Duennwald

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

In the past two decades, yeast models have delivered profound insights into basic mechanisms of protein misfolding and the dysfunction of key cellular pathways associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Expressing ALS-associated proteins, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD1), TAR DNA binding protein 43 (TDP-43) and Fused in sarcoma (FUS), in yeast recapitulates major hallmarks of ALS pathology, including protein aggregation, mislocalization and cellular toxicity. Results from yeast have consistently been recapitulated in other model systems and even specimens from human patients, thus providing evidence for the power and validity of ALS yeast models. Focusing on impaired ribonucleic acid (RNA) metabolism …

Overall Survival (Os) Implications For Patients With Mcrpc Through Coverage And Adoption Of Nuclear Ar-V7 Testing By Healthcare Systems, J Hornberger, R P. Graf, M Hulling, G Attard, A Allan, R Dittamore, H Scher

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

No abstract provided.

Behavioral Plasticity Of Audiovisual Perception: Rapid Recalibration Of Temporal Sensitivity But Not Perceptual Binding Following Adult-Onset Hearing Loss, Ashley L. Schormans, Brian L. Allaman

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

The ability to accurately integrate or bind stimuli from more than one sensory modality is highly dependent on the features of the stimuli, such as their intensity and relative timing. Previous studies have demonstrated that the ability to perceptually bind stimuli is impaired in various clinical conditions such as autism, dyslexia, schizophrenia, as well as aging. However, it remains unknown if adult-onset hearing loss, separate from aging, influences audiovisual temporal acuity. In the present study, rats were trained using appetitive operant conditioning to perform an audiovisual temporal order judgment (TOJ) task or synchrony judgment (SJ) task in order to investigate …

Implementing The Proclamation Of Stroke And Potentially Preventable Dementias, Vladimir Hachinski, Detlev Ganten, Daniel Lackland, Reinhold Kreutz, Konstantinos Tsioufis, Werner Hacke

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

Brain health plays a central role in wellbeing and in the management of chronic diseases. Stroke and dementia pose the two greatest threats to brain health, but recent developments suggest the possibility that preventing stroke may also prevent some dementias: 1. A large population study showed a 32% decrease in the incidence of stroke and a concomitant 7% reduction in the incidence of dementia; 2. Treatment of atrial fibrillation resulted not only in stroke reduction, but a 48% decrease in dementia; 3. A hypothesis free analyses has shown that the first phase of Alzheimer disease involves vascular dysregulation, opening the …

Altered Auditory Processing, Filtering, And Reactivity N The Cntnap2 Knock-Out Rat Model For Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Kaela E. Scott, Ashley L. Schormans, Katharine Y. Pacoli, Cleusa De Oliveria, Brian L. Allman, Susanne Schmid

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

Sensory processing, and auditory processing in particular, is altered in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The typical maturation of the auditory system is perturbed in these individuals during early development, which may underlie altered auditory reactivity that persists in later life. Of the many genes that regulate the auditory system development, loss-of-function mutations in the CNTNAP2 gene are strongly associated with language processing deficits and ASD. Therefore, using a novel Cntnap2 knock-out rat model, we tested the impact of Cntnap2 loss on auditory processing, filtering, and reactivity throughout development and young adulthood in male and …

The Role Of Cholinergic Midbrain Neurons In Startle And Prepulse Inhibition, Erin Azzopardi, Andrea G. Louttit, Cleusa Deoliveira, Steven R, Laviolette, Susanne Schmid

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

One of the two major cholinergic centers of the mammalian brain is located in the midbrain, i.e., the pedunculopontine tegmentum (PPTg) and the adjacent laterodorsal tegmentum. These cholinergic neurons have been shown to be important for e.g., arousal, reward associations, and sleep. They also have been suggested to mediate sensorimotor gating, measured as prepulse inhibition of startle (PPI). PPI disruptions are a hallmark of schizophrenia and are observed in various other psychiatric disorders, where they are associated with, and often predictive of, other cognitive symptoms. PPI has been proposed to be mediated by a short midbrain circuitry including inhibitory cholinergic …

Everolimus In Advanced Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, J Raphael, C Lefebvre, A Allan, J Helou, G Boldt, T Vandenberg

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

No abstract provided.

Air Pollution: A Silent Common Killer For Stroke And Dementia, Mahmoud R. Azarpazhooh, Vladimir Hachinski

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

No abstract provided.

Where Have All The Cell Organelles Gone During The Cell Division?, Khalid Ahmed, H R. Ahmad

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

No abstract provided.

Immune Checkpoints In Cancer Treatment, Matthew A. Cherubino

Student Publications

Despite the human immune system, cancer thrives in an extremely hostile environment. Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the U.S. with about 600,000 deaths every year, and cancer is expected to surpass heart disease as the most common cause of death in the U.S. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a novel and promising therapeutic for treating cancer in its late stages.

Membrane Associated Collagen Xiii Promotes Cancer Metastasis And Enhances Anoikis Resistance, Hui Zhang, Tricia Fredericks, Gaofeng Xiong, Yifei Qi, Piotr G. Rychahou, Jia-Da Li, Taina Pihlajaniemi, Wei Xu, Ren Xu

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Background: Increased collagen expression and deposition are associated with cancer progression and poor prognosis in breast cancer patients. However, function and regulation of membrane-associated collagen in breast cancer have not been determined. Collagen XIII is a type II transmembrane protein within the collagen superfamily. Experiments in tissue culture and knockout mouse models show that collagen XIII is involved in cell adhesion and differentiation of certain cell types. In the present study, we determined roles of collagen XIII in breast cancer progression and metastasis.

Methods: We analyzed the association of collagen XIII expression with breast cancer development and metastasis using published …

Using Non Stem-Cells To Understand Early Tumor Growth, Jake Hogan, Heiko Enderling, Joel Brown, Robert A. Gatenby

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2018

Tumors of similar size and shape can exhibit different responses to the same treatment. Targeted therapy aims to better treat these tumors by classifying them according to genotypic traits. A better understanding of how tumor traits such as non-stem cells influence tumor growth could improve targeted therapy. We hypothesize that the production of non-stem cells may aid tumor growth in avascular tumors (tumors lacking blood vessels).

Effect Of Larval Starvation On Lipid Content Of Drosophila Melanogaster Over 15 Days, Fabian Leija, Allen Gibbs

LSAMP Poster Presentations

Starvation-resistant Drosophila melanogaster, common fruit flies, deriving from 121 generations of starvation selection, have resulted in genetically, behaviorally, and physiologically different individuals compared to non-resistant counterparts. Starvation-resistant Drosophila are more obese, containing twice as much lipids as control flies.This is a result of starvation-resistant fly larva feeding for 5 days and then entering the pupa stage while non-resistant flies only feed for 4 days.

In this experiment, we hope to answer the question of whether the starvation-resistant flies are genetically predisposed to be substantially more obese than wild populations or if it is a result of this alternate behavior …

Comprehensive Evaluation Of Treatment And Outcomes Of Low-Grade Diffuse Gliomas, Catherine R. Garcia, Stacey A. Slone, Thomas A. Pittman, William H. St. Clair, Donita D. Lightner, John L. Villano

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Background

Low-grade gliomas affect younger adults and carry a favorable prognosis. They include a variety of biological features affecting clinical behavior and treatment. Having no guidelines on treatment established, we aim to describe clinical and treatment patterns of low-grade gliomas across the largest cancer database in the United States.

Methods

We analyzed the National Cancer Database from 2004 to 2015, for adult patients with a diagnosis of World Health Organization grade II diffuse glioma.

Results

We analyzed 13,621 cases with median age of 41 years. Over 56% were male, 88.4% were white, 6.1% were black, and 7.6% Hispanic. The most …

The Role Of Proton Transport In Gating Current In A Voltage Gated Ion Channel, As Shown By Quantum Calculations, Alisher M. Kariev, Michael E. Green

Publications and Research

Over two-thirds of a century ago, Hodgkin and Huxley proposed the existence of voltage gated ion channels (VGIC) to carry Na⁺ and K⁺ ions across the cell membrane to create the nerve impulse, in response to depolarization of the membrane. The channels have multiple physiological roles, and play a central role in a wide variety of diseases when they malfunction. The first channel structure was found by MacKinnon and coworkers in 1998. Subsequently the structure of a number of VGIC was determined in the open (ion conducting) state. This type of channel consists of four voltage sensing domains …

Iron-Dependent Cleavage Of Ribosomal Rna During Oxidative Stress In The Yeast Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Jessica A Zinskie, Arnab Ghosh, Brandon M Trainor, Daniel Shedlovskiy, Dimitri G Pestov, Natalia Shcherbik

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Stress-induced strand breaks in rRNA have been observed in many organisms, but the mechanisms by which they originate are not well-understood. Here we show that a chemical rather than an enzymatic mechanism initiates rRNA cleavages during oxidative stress in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). We used cells lacking the mitochondrial glutaredoxin Grx5 to demonstrate that oxidant-induced cleavage formation in 25S rRNA correlates with intracellular iron levels. Sequestering free iron by chemical or genetic means decreased the extent of rRNA degradation and relieved the hypersensitivity of grx5Δ cells to the oxidants. Importantly, subjecting purified ribosomes to an in vitro iron/ascorbate …

Glutathione De Novo Synthesis But Not Recycling Process Coordinates With Glutamine Catabolism To Control Redox Homeostasis And Directs Murine T Cell Differentiation, Gaojian Lian, J. N. Rashida Gnanaprakasam, Tingting Wang, Ruohan Wu, Xuyong Chen, Lingling Liu, Yuqing Shen, Mao Yang, Jun Yang, Ying Chen, Vasilis Vasiliou, Teresa A. Cassel, Douglas R. Green, Yusen Liu, Teresa W. -M. Fan, Ruoning Wang

Toxicology and Cancer Biology Faculty Publications

Upon antigen stimulation, T lymphocytes undergo dramatic changes in metabolism to fulfill the bioenergetic, biosynthetic and redox demands of proliferation and differentiation. Glutathione (GSH) plays an essential role in controlling redox balance and cell fate. While GSH can be recycled from Glutathione disulfide (GSSG), the inhibition of this recycling pathway does not impact GSH content and murine T cell fate. By contrast, the inhibition of the de novo synthesis of GSH, by deleting either the catalytic (Gclc) or the modifier (Gclm) subunit of glutamate–cysteine ligase (Gcl), dampens intracellular GSH, increases ROS, and impact T cell differentiation. Moreover, the inhibition of …

Susceptibility Genes To Plant Viruses, Hernan Garcia-Ruiz

Nebraska Center for Virology: Faculty Publications

Plant viruses use cellular factors and resources to replicate and move. Plants respond to viral infection by several mechanisms, including innate immunity, autophagy, and gene silencing, that viruses must evade or suppress. Thus, the establishment of infection is genetically determined by the availability of host factors necessary for virus replication and movement and by the balance between plant defense and viral suppression of defense responses. Host factors may have antiviral or proviral activities. Proviral factors condition susceptibility to viruses by participating in processes essential to the virus. Here, we review current advances in the identification and characterization of host factors …

Membrane Expression Of Thymidine Kinase 1 And Potential Clinical Relevance In Lung, Breast, And Colorectal Malignancies, Evita G. Weagel, Weston Burrup, Roman Kovtun, Edwin J. Valazquez, Abigail M. Felsted, Michelle H. Townsend, Zachary E. Ence, Erica Suh, Stephen Piccolo, K. Scott Weber, Richard A. Robison, Kim Oneill

Faculty Publications

Background: Lung, breast, and colorectal malignancies are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the world causing over 2.8 million cancer-related deaths yearly. Despite efforts to improve prevention methods, early detection, and treatments, survival rates for advanced stage lung, breast, and colon cancer remain low, indicating a critical need to identify cancer-specific biomarkers for early detection and treatment. Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is a nucleotide salvage pathway enzyme involved in cellular proliferation and considered an important tumor proliferation biomarker in the serum. In this study, we further characterized TK1’s potential as a tumor biomarker and immunotherapeutic target and clinical relevance. …

Escherichia Coli Itat Is A Type Ii Toxin That Inhibits Translation By Acetylating Isoleucyl-Trnaile, Brendan Wilcox, Ilya Osterman, Marina Serebryakova, Dmitry Lukyanov, Ekaterina Komarova, Bridget Gollan, Natalia Morozova, Yuri I Wolf, Kira S Makarova, Sophie Helaine, Petr Sergiev, Svetlana Dubiley, Sergei Borukhov, Konstantin Severinov

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Prokaryotic toxin-antitoxin (TA) modules are highly abundant and are involved in stress response and drug tolerance. The most common type II TA modules consist of two interacting proteins. The type II toxins are diverse enzymes targeting various essential intracellular targets. The antitoxin binds to cognate toxin and inhibits its function. Recently, TA modules whose toxins are GNAT-family acetyltransferases were described. For two such systems, the target of acetylation was shown to be aminoacyl-tRNA: the TacT toxin targets aminoacylated elongator tRNAs, while AtaT targets the amino acid moiety of initiating tRNAMet. We show that the itaRT gene pair from Escherichia coli …