Cell Biology Commons^™

Stationary Phase Mutagenesis In Bacillus Subtilisis Independent Of Genome Replication, Mark Upchurch, Holly Martin, Eduardo Robleto

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Stationary phase mutagenesis is defined as cellular mechanisms that produce genetic diversity in cells experiencing conditions of stress. These processes are associated with many biological phenomena, including those that produce the formation of cancers in animal cells and other degenerative diseases. Also, these mechanisms are associated with the accumulation of beneficial mutations in bacteria, but follow stochastic processes and are controlled by genetic factors. The current models explaining the generation of stress-induced mutations are predicated on the formation of DNA replication intermediates that are formed during the repair of damaged DNA or during DNA replication and transcription encounters. Here we …

Production, Purification And Crystallization Of Membrane Integrated Multimeric Bax, Adelbert Mark Villoso

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a vital process intimately involved in the embryonic development and homeostatic maintenance of all multicellular organisms. The committing step to apoptosis is regulated by a key protein, Bax, and its ability to integrate and form a pore structure at the outer mitochondrial membrane.

Unfortunately, the molecular details of apoptosis remain largely unclear due to the lack of structural data of integral membrane (IM) Bax. Experimental limitations of membrane protein production have slowed the pursuit of an IM-Bax structure simply because standard protocols for producing recombinant IM-Bax are inefficient in producing adequate quantities of IM-Bax …

Stationary Phase Mutagenesis In Bacillus Subtilis: The Interaction Between Transcription And Error-Prone Replication In Conditions Of Stress, Mary Girard, Eduardo Robleto

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

While under conditions of stress, non-dividing cells may acquire beneficial mutations. This is referred to as stationary phase mutagenesis, or adaptive mutagenesis. Previous research has shown that actively transcribed genes and those under selective pressure are prone to mutations that confer escape from non-dividing conditions. Accordingly, strains lacking transcription factors have shown a drastically lower number of mutations that confer escape while under amino acid starvation than those observed in the wildtype background. Also, error-prone DNA polymerases are known to be active in cells under stress and it has been shown that strains lacking an error-prone DNA polymerase display reduced …

Protection Of Macrophages J774a.1 By Purine Nucleoside Analogues From Bacillus Anthracis Mediated Necrosis, Zadkiel R. Alvarez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Eight years after the lamentable anthrax attacks, major scientific effort continues to be done, in order to stop imminent acts of bioterrorism. Innovative ways of therapy against the anthrax disease are being investigated. B. anthracis, the etiological agent of the infection, has a dormant stage in its life cycle known as the endospore. When conditions become favorable spores germinate, transforming into vegetative bacteria. In inhalational anthrax, the most fatal manifestation of the disease, spores enter the organism through the respiratory track, and are phagocytosized by alveolar macrophages of the lungs. Spores are able to sense nutrient availability, activating their germination …

An Algorithm For Identifying Novel Targets Of Transcription Factor Families: Application To Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1 Targets, Yue Jiang, Bojan Cukic, Donald A. Adjeroh, Heath D. Skinner, Jie Lin, Qingxi J. Shen, Bing-Hua Jiang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Efficient and effective analysis of the growing genomic databases requires the development of adequate computational tools. We introduce a fast method based on the suffix tree data structure for predicting novel targets of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) from huge genome databases. The suffix tree data structure has two powerful applications here: one is to extract unknown patterns from multiple strings/sequences in linear time; the other is to search multiple strings/sequences using multiple patterns in linear time. Using 15 known HIF-1 target gene sequences as a training set, we extracted 105 common patterns that all occur in the 15 training genes …