Genetics and Genomics Commons^™

Cbp60-Db: An Alphafold-Predicted Plant Kingdom-Wide Database Of The Calmodulin-Binding Protein 60 (Cbp60) Protein Family With A Novel Structural Clustering Algorithm, Keaun Amani, Vanessa Shivnauth, Christian Castroverde

Biology Faculty Publications

Molecular genetic analyses in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana have demonstrated the major roles of different CAM-BINDING PROTEIN 60 (CBP60) proteins in growth, stress signaling, and immune responses. Prominently, CBP60g and SARD1 are paralogous CBP60 transcription factors that regulate numerous components of the immune system, such as cell surface and intracellular immune receptors, MAP kinases, WRKY transcription factors, and biosynthetic enzymes for immunity-activating metabolites salicylic acid (SA) and N-hydroxypipecolic acid (NHP). However, their function, regulation and diversification in most species remain unclear. Here we have created CBP60-DB, a structural and bioinformatic database that comprehensively characterized 1052 CBP60 gene homologs …

Degradation And Nitrogen Cycling In The Context Of Biodiversity-Ecosystem Function Relationships In The Inquiline Bacterial Community Of Darlingtonia Californica, Megan Teigen

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Biodiversity-ecosystem function (BEF) research aims to explain how species and their environments interact with each other. Microbial communities engage in vital biogeochemical pathways in a variety of natural ecosystems, and yet there are large knowledge gaps about the specific metabolic pathways in which they are involved. Degradation specifically contributes to nitrogen cycling globally through the breakdown of large organic nitrogen compounds into small inorganic nitrogen that is necessary for the survival of many other organisms. In this study, I focused on the degradative function of the inquiline microbial communities found within the carnivorous pitcher plant, Darlingtonia californica. Darlingtonia grows in …

Modeling Jadera Haematoloma’S Phenotypic Variation In The Context Of Its Developmental Plasticity, Michael C. Yorsz

Honors Theses

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of an organism to integrate information from environmental cues to inform the development of its phenotype and remains understudied in biology. Models of plasticity are needed because evolution in the presence of plasticity is poorly understood. Jadera haematoloma, a hemimetabolous true bug, is an excellent animal model of plasticity, exhibiting a non-linear plastic response to juvenile nutrition that biases adult development into groups with differences in flight capability, wing shape, and fecundity. However, there is a lack of literature consensus regarding the range of developmental outcomes in the species. Some publications report the presence …

Comparative Transcriptomic Analysis Of Cancer Testis Genes In Ovarian Cancer, Zayne Knuth

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Cancer testis genes are common targets for the development of immunotherapy for cancer treatment. Ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes of death in women cancer patients. Cancer testis genes play a role in tumorigenesis, but it is not clear how these genes are activated. This study utilized differential expression analysis between The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) ovarian cancer data, Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) non-cancerous ovary and testis data, and cell line data to identify a list of cancer testis genes that have a novel expression profile. To identify ovarian cancer testis genes, we obtained normal ovary tissue data and …

Getting To The Root Cause: The Genetic Underpinnings Of Root System Architecture And Rhizodeposition In Sorghum, Farren Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Plants are some of the most diverse organisms on earth, consisting of more than 350,000 different species. To understand the underlying processes that contributed to plant diversification, it is fundamental to identify the genetic and genomic components that facilitated various adaptations over evolutionary history. Most studies to date have focused on the underlying controls of above-ground traits such as grain and vegetation; however, little is known about the “hidden half” of plants. Root systems comprise half of the total plant structure and provide vital functions such as anchorage, resource acquisition, and storage of energy reserves. The execution of these key …

An Integrative Investigation Of The Synechococcus A/B Clade During Adaptive Radiation At The Upper Thermal Limit Of Phototrophy, Christopher L. Pierpont

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Thermophilic microorganisms have been scientifically observed since the early nineteenth century and have spurred many questions about the limits of life and the capacity of organisms to survive extreme conditions. Decades of research on thermophile proteins and genomes have yielded several proposed correlates of temperature that may contribute to adaptation of bacteria and archaea to high temperature. However, many of the generalizations reported are drawn from analyses of deeply divergent taxa or from individual case studies in isolation from mesophilic relatives. Members of the Synechococcus A/B (SynAB) group are the only cyanobacteria with members able to grow above 65 °C …

Identifying Epidermal Enriched Genes Required For Planarian Regeneration- Sp. Schmidtea Mediterranea, Pallob Barai

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

The outer epithelial layer covering an organism, commonly known as the epidermis, is crucial for maintaining homeostasis and for the wound healing processes after injury. The planarian epidermis allows flatworms to heal their wounds and virtually restore any missing tissues. Immediately after amputation, planarians contract their muscle and stretch their epidermis to heal the wound area. However, how the planarian epidermis coordinates with other tissues and mechanisms after the initial wound healing processes begins is not understood in detail. I hypothesized that epidermal cell stretching upon wound healing induces transcriptional changes that are required for effective regeneration. To test this …

Fathmm: Frameshift Aware Translated Hidden Markov Models, Genevieve Krause

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Completing Single-Cell Dna Methylome Profiles Via Transfer Learning Together With Kl-Divergence, Sanjeeva Dodlapati, Zongliang Jiang, Jiangwen Sun

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The high level of sparsity in methylome profiles obtained using whole-genome bisulfite sequencing in the case of low biological material amount limits its value in the study of systems in which large samples are difficult to assemble, such as mammalian preimplantation embryonic development. The recently developed computational methods for addressing the sparsity by imputing missing have their limits when the required minimum data coverage or profiles of the same tissue in other modalities are not available. In this study, we explored the use of transfer learning together with Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence to train predictive models for completing methylome profiles with …

Identifying The Human Homologs Of Yeast Rab Proteins Ypt10 & Ypt11 And A Global-Scale Louse Endosymbiont Genome Variation, Nathaniel P. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a late-onset fatal neurodegenerative disease that causes loss of upper and/or lower motor neurons, and currently has no treatment or cure available. Over 90% of cases occur spontaneously with unknown causes, highlighting the complexity of the disease, and only 10% of cases are linked to heritable genetic mutations. Numerous ALS-linked genes are conserved through evolution, and model organisms may therefore provide opportunities to understand disease pathology at a molecular or cellular level, proving instrumental in identifying therapeutic targets. ALS subtype 8 (ALS8) is caused by an autosomal dominant P56S mutation in the VAPB gene that …

Integrative Analysis Of Multi-Omics Kinome Data And Virtual Screening Of Identified Targets With Pan-Cancer Application, Siddesh Southekal

Theses & Dissertations

Cancer is a heterogeneous disease characterized by the uncontrolled growth and dissemination of abnormal cells. Unfortunately, it is also challenging to treat due to the heterogeneous nature of the tumors and the lack of known drugs that are effective against all tumor subpopulations.

The human protein kinases represent an essential and diverse family of enzymes and are often dysregulated in cancer. The human kinome comprises only around 2% of all coding genes of the human genome but phosphorylates about 30% of cellular proteins critical for regulating various biological processes such as cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, apoptosis, motility, growth, differentiation, …

Evaluation Of Deep Neural Network Prospr For Accurate Protein Distance Predictions On Casp14 Targets, Jacob A. Stern, Bryce Eric Hedelius, Olivia Fisher, Wendy M. Billings, Dennis Della Corte

Faculty Publications

The field of protein structure prediction has recently been revolutionized through the introduction of deep learning. The current state-of-the-art tool AlphaFold2 can predict highly accurate structures; however, it has a prohibitively long inference time for applications that require the folding of hundreds of sequences. The prediction of protein structure annotations, such as amino acid distances, can be achieved at a higher speed with existing tools, such as the ProSPr network. Here, we report on important updates to the ProSPr network, its performance in the recent Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP14) competition, and an evaluation of its …

Prediction Of Diabetes Using Logistic Regression And Ensemble Techniques, Priyanka Rajendra, Shahram Latifi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Background Logistic regression is a classification model in machine learning, extensively used in clinical analysis. It uses probabilistic estimations which helps in understanding the relationship between the dependent variable and one or more independent variables. Diabetes, being one of the most common diseases around the world, when detected early, may prevent the progression of the disease and avoid other complications. In this work, we design a prediction model, that predicts whether a patient has diabetes, based on certain diagnostic measurements included in the dataset, and explore various techniques to boost the performance and accuracy. Methods Logistic Regression is the main …

Improved Radiation Expression Profiling In Blood By Sequential Application Of Sensitive And Specific Gene Signatures, Eliseos J. Mucaki, Ben C. Shirley, Peter K. Rogan

Biochemistry Publications

Purpose. Combinations of expressed genes can discriminate radiation-exposed from normal control blood samples by machine learning based signatures (with 8 to 20% misclassification rates). These signatures can quantify therapeutically-relevant as well as accidental radiation exposures. The prodromal symptoms of Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) overlap those present in Influenza and Dengue Fever infections. Surprisingly, these human radiation signatures misclassified gene expression profiles of virally infected samples as false positive exposures. The present study investigates these and other confounders, and then mitigates their impact on signature accuracy.

Methods. This study investigated recall by previous and novel radiation signatures independently derived …

Human 5’-Tailed Mirtrons Are Processed By Rnasep, Mohammad Farid Zia

Dissertations

Approximately a thousand microRNAs (miRNAs) are documented from human cells. A third appear to transit non-canonical pathways that typically bypass processing by Drosha, the dedicated nuclear miRNA producing enzyme. The largest class of non-canonical miRNAs are mirtrons which eschew Drosha to mature through spliceosome activity. While mirtrons are found in several configurations, the vast majority of human mirtron species are 5’-tailed. For these mirtrons, a 3’ splice site defines the 3’ end of their hairpin precursor while a “tail” of variable length separates the 5’ base of the hairpin from the nearest splice site. How this tail is removed is …

In Silico Identification Of A Streptococcus Phage From An Unpasteurized Dairy Product

Symposium of Student Scholars

This study aimed to identify novel phages from a West African dairy product, nunu, to better understand the uncharacterized virosphere of a food microbiome. Nunu is a yogurt-like product from spontaneous fermentation of unpasteurized cow milk without a standardized starter culture. Phages and their bacterial hosts make up a microbiome, where their collective metagenome can be studied in silico, or computationally, after next generation sequencing (NGS). The targeted dataset for our study can be found in the Sequence Read Archives under the accession number of ERX2041567. This study utilized several bioinformatics software tools with customized settings: Kraken2, MetaVelvet, Edena, NCBI-BLAST, …

In Silico Isolation Of A Novel Phage For Food Safety Applications Against Pathogenic E. Coli, Daisy Mcgrath

Symposium of Student Scholars

With the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) on metagenomes, the elucidation of all genetic material from microbiomes has prompted a renewed interest towards uncultivated members of the virosphere. We describe the discovery of a novel phage from a metagenomic dataset on the West African fermented dairy product, nunu, with a custom bioinformatics workflow to potentially serve as a biocontrol agent against pathogenic E. coli. Initial dataset of ERR2014814 from NCBI was first subjected to Kraken2 to extract novel sequencing reads for further de novo assembly into contigs by MetaVelvet. Resultant contigs served as potential partial phage genomes, then searched …

Characterization Of The Growth Factor Receptor Network Oncogenes In Lung Cancer, Ashley Duche

Pharmaceutical Sciences (MS) Theses

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer related deaths worldwide, reportedly contributing to 1.8 million of the 10.0 million mortalities documented in the year 2020. Although advancements have been made in therapeutics and diagnostic methods, formulation of effective treatments and development of drug resistance continues to be a challenge. These challenges arise from our lack of understanding of intricate signaling pathways, such as the Growth Factor Receptor Network (GFRN), which contributes to complex lung tumor heterogeneity allowing for drug resistance development. In this study, gene expression signatures of six GFRN oncogenes overexpressed in human mammary epithelial cells (HMECs) were …

Unveiling Global Roles Of G-Quadruplexes And G4-22 In Human Genetics, Ruth Barros De Paula

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

G-quadruplexes are non-B DNA structures formed by four or more runs of repeated guanines that confer unique features to living organism’s genomes. These sequences are enriched in regulatory regions, such as promoters and 5’ UTRs, and have distinct regulatory roles in both health and disease states. Even though previous studies showed the impact of G4 in gene expression, none of them summarized the location-specific effect of G4. Also, there is no broad understanding about the most common G4 repeat in the human genome, named here as G4-22, and how it links to the evolution of mammals and their biology. In …

Drug Repurposing For Covid-19 Using Molecular Docking Tools, Deniz Yasar Oztas

Computational and Data Sciences (MS) Theses

Since severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is highly contagious and mortal, finding a treatment is time critical. Drug repurposing is probably the quickest and safest approach in our arsenal. However, testing every drug in a brute force manner would require a lot of resources, and a more sophisticated method is required to filter possible candidates. Since several molecules have already been shown to be effective against SARS-CoV-2 in wet-lab experiments, choosing drugs with similar characteristics would increase our chances of success. In this study, we compare the molecular docking results of FDA-approved drugs from the ZINC database against …

Rnase Κ Promotes Robust Pirna Production By Generating 2',3'-Cyclic Phosphate-Containing Precursors, Megumi Shigematsu, Takuya Kawamura, Keisuke Morichika, Natsuko Izumi, Takashi Kiuchi, Shozo Honda, Venetia Pliatsika, Ryuma Matsubara, Isidore Rigoutsos, Susumu Katsuma, Yukihide Tomari, Yohei Kirino

Computational Medicine Center Faculty Papers

In animal germlines, PIWI proteins and the associated PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) protect genome integrity by silencing transposons. Here we report the extensive sequence and quantitative correlations between 2′,3′-cyclic phosphate-containing RNAs (cP-RNAs), identified using cP-RNA-seq, and piRNAs in the Bombyx germ cell line and mouse testes. The cP-RNAs containing 5′-phosphate (P-cP-RNAs) identified by P-cP-RNA-seq harbor highly consistent 5′-end positions as the piRNAs and are loaded onto PIWI protein, suggesting their direct utilization as piRNA precursors. We identified Bombyx RNase Kappa (BmRNase κ) as a mitochondria-associated endoribonuclease which produces cP-RNAs during piRNA biogenesis. BmRNase κ-depletion elevated transposon levels and disrupted a piRNA-mediated …

Understanding Potassium Toxicity Stress Responses Of The Extremophyte Schrenkiella Parvula Using Systems Biology Approaches, Pramod Pantha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Schrenkiella parvula is an extremophyte model closely related to Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica crops. Its natural habitat includes shores of saline lakes in the Irano-Turanian region. It has adapted to grow in soils rich in multiple salts including Na⁺ and K⁺. I have investigated the genetic basis for high K⁺ tolerance in plants using S. parvula as a stress tolerant model compared to the premier plant model, Arabidopsis thaliana which is highly sensitive to salt stresses using physiological, ionomic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic approaches. Under high K⁺ stress, root system architecture changes significantly compared to control …

Comparative Genomics Methods And Applications, Emily N. Alden

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Virtually all fields of biology have benefited from the advancements in comparative genomics technologies, specifically in the study of evolution. In this dissertation I develop and use comparative genomic technologies to investigate the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, assembly the first genome of the black lace domestic angelfish and identify germline genetic variants associated with altered breast cancer-specific survival. Our genome tiling array for the novel coronavirus presents a rapid and cost-effective method to sequence the entire viral genome and can be used to track the rapid evolution of viral variants in the population. The domestic angelfish is a member of the …

The Differences Of Prokaryotic Pan-Genome Analysis On Complete Genomes And Simulated Metagenome-Assembled Genomes, Tang Li

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Metagenomic assembly is often used in microbiome research. In metagenomic assembly, contigs are binned based on the shared nucleotide composition. These contig bins are called metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), each representing a unique bacterial genome recovered from metagenome sequencing. Hundreds of thousands of high-quality MAGs of various ecological environments have been published since 2017, and increasingly more MAGs are being used in pan-genome analyses where unculturable species or species without reference genomes are studied in microbiome research. However, compared to the traditional pan-genome analysis that uses isolate genomes (from a pure strain isolated from a mixed bacterial population), it is not …

Genomic And Ecological Dimensions Of Malagasy Reptile And Amphibian Biodiversity, Arianna L. Kuhn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A long history of isolation coupled with complex topographic and ecological landscapes makes Madagascar ideal for exploring the historical factors that have shaped patterns of population diversity and endemism. Many species-level studies have suggested Late Quaternary climate change may have influenced population dynamics in the tropics, but Madagascar’s ecologically unique biomes or individual species properties may have driven idiosyncratic responses to these shifts. Using community-scale population genetic data I implement a hierarchical approximate Bayesian computation (hABC) approach to evaluate the degree of synchronous population expansion during glacial cycles across herpetofaunal assemblages both within and across discrete biomes and taxonomic groups. …

Dynamic Observers For Unknown Populations, Chris Guiver, Nathan Poppelreiter, Richard Rebarber, Brigitte Tenhumberg, Stuart Townley

Brigitte Tenhumberg Papers

Dynamic observers are considered in the context of structuredpopulation modeling and management. Roughly, observers combine a known measured variable of some process with a model of that process to asymptotically reconstruct the unknown state variable of the model. We investigate the potential use of observers for reconstructing population distributions described by density-independent (linear) models and a class of density-dependent (nonlinear) models. In both the density-dependent and -independent cases, we show, in several ecologically reasonable circumstances, that there is a natural, optimal construction of these observers. Further, we describe the robustness these observers exhibit with respect to disturbances and uncertainty in …

Impact Of Intratumor Heterogeneity And The Tumor Microenvironment In Shaping Tumor Evolution And Response To Therapy, Akash Mitra

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) is a crucial challenge in cancer treatment. The genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity underlying diverse cancer types leads to subclonal variation, which may result in mixed or failed response to therapy. The heterogeneity at the tumor level, along with the tumor microenvironment (TME), often shapes tumor evolution and ultimately clinical outcome. Given that modern treatment paradigms increasingly expose patients with metastatic disease to multiple treatment modalities through the course of their disease, there exists a need to characterize robust and predictive biomarkers of response to therapy. In order to accurately characterize tumor evolution, we need to account for …

Identifying The Cell Composition And Clonal Diversity Of Supratentorial Ependymoma Using Single Cell Rna-Sequencing, James He

University Scholar Projects

Ependymoma is a primary solid tumor of the central nervous system. Supratentorial ependymoma (ST-EPN), a subtype of ependymomas, is driven by an oncogenic fusion between the ZFTA and RELA genes in 70% of cases. We introduced this fusion into neural progenitor cells of mice embryos via in utero electroporation of a non-viral binary piggyBac transposon system containing ZFTA-RELA. From preliminary data in the LoTurco lab, inducing the expression of ZFTA-RELA into different neural progenitor cells produces tumors of varying lethality and cellular composition. To define the cellular composition and subclonal diversity of ST-EPN tumors, we used single cell RNA-sequencing to …

Mucin And Splice Variant Profiles Of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Predict Patient Survival And Subtyping, Christopher M. Thompson

Theses & Dissertations

PDAC is a pancreatic epithelial malignancy and demonstrates aggressive progression and bleak patient prognosis. Despite decades of research, the evolution of novel diagnostics and intervention modalities for PDAC is stagnant. This dissertation explores the characteristic aberrant and elevated expression of mucins in PDAC. Beginning with the hypothesis that mucins are associated with disease aggressiveness, analysis of PDAC patient survival in TCGA revealed no associations between single mucin expression and patient survival. This led to the underlying issue of PDAC tumor cellularity since this disease demonstrates variability in the proportion of cancer cells within the tumor. Tumor purity assessed with the …

Investigating Pirna Expression And Function In Regenerating Tissue Of Segmented Annelid Capitella Teleta, Beatriz Schueng Zancanela

Honors Theses

Regeneration can be observed virtually in all animals and previous studies have identified numerous genes involved in this process. In some invertebrates, the P-element induced wimpy testis (PIWI) genes appear to have an essential role. One such organism is Capitella teleta, a widely accepted model for annelid development. PIWI proteins are associated with small non-coding RNA called PIWI-interacting RNAs or piRNAs, which are involved in transposon silencing in the germline cells of many animals. It was previously believed that these proteins were only expressed in germline cells, however, recent studies have shown expression in somatic tissues as well. The function …