Laboratory and Basic Science Research Commons^™

Single-Fluorophore Sensors For Mechanical Force In Living Cells, Sarah Kricheff

Honors Scholar Theses

Mechanotransduction is the process by which a mechanical stimulus is converted to a cellular signal. This process is heavily influential of cell morphology, differentiation, and behavior. However, altered levels of mechanical stimuli are also found in many pathological contexts. For example, cancerous cells have stiffer surrounding tissue than healthy cells, and research suggests that this alters cell behavior and promotes metastasis. Despite these findings, the cellular processes behind these signaling alterations remain widely unknown. Understanding these cascades is critical, as involved proteins can give us a deeper understanding of the role of mechanotransduction, and certain proteins can potentially be targeted …

Modeling And Analyzing An Optogenetic System For Photoactivatable Protein Dissociation, Anvin Thomas, James Schaff

Honors Scholar Theses

Computational modeling of cell-cell interactions can grant clues and can answer questions about an experiment, especially for observations about binding interactions and kinetics. This approach was used to investigate an interaction between a light-oxygen-voltage (LOV) domain and an engineered protein called Zdark (Zdk). The LOV domain is membrane-bound while Zdk is cytosolic. The LOV domain and Zdk bind strongly in dark (K_d 26.2 nM), and weakly upon exposure to blue light (K_d > 4 μM). Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) images are acquired of Zdk, the fluorescent species bound to a mCherry tag, and the loss of fluorescence is …

Itraq-Based Proteomics Analysis And Network Integration For Kernel Tissue Development In Maize, Long Zhang, Yongbin Dong, Qilei Wang, Chunguang Du, Wenwei Xiong, Xinyu Li, Sailan Zhu, Yuling Li

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Grain weight is one of the most important yield components and a developmentally complex structure comprised of two major compartments (endosperm and pericarp) in maize (Zea mays L.), however, very little is known concerning the coordinated accumulation of the numerous proteins involved. Herein, we used isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ)-based comparative proteomic method to analyze the characteristics of dynamic proteomics for endosperm and pericarp during grain development. Totally, 9539 proteins were identified for both components at four development stages, among which 1401 proteins were non-redundant, 232 proteins were specific in pericarp and 153 proteins were specific in …

Annotation And Identification Of Several Glycerolipid Metabolic Related Ortholog Genes; Mrub_0437, Mrub_1813 And Mrub_2759 In The Organism Meithermus Ruber And Their Predicted Respective Orthologs B3926, B4042 And Bo514 Found In E.Coli., Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader, Dr. Lori R. Scott

Meiothermus ruber Genome Analysis Project

We predict Mrub_0437 encodes the enzyme glycerol kinase (DNA coordinates [417621..419183), which is an intermediary step of the glycerolipid metabolic pathway (KEGG map00561), It catalyzes the conversion of glycerol to sn-Glycerol-3-phosphate. The E. coli K12 MG1655 ortholog is predicted to be b3926.

We predict Mrub_1813 encodes the enzyme diacylglycerol kinase (DNA coordinates [1864659..1865063), which is an intermediary step of the glycerolipid metabolic pathway (KEGG map00561), It catalyzes the conversion of 1,2-diacyl-sn-glycerol to 1,2-diacyl-sn-glycerol 3-phosphate. The E. coli K12 MG1655 ortholog is predicted to be b4042.

We predict Mrub_2759 encodes the enzyme glycerol kinase (DNA coordinates [2799712..2800665), which is an intermediary …

Identification, Characterization, And Life Cycle Of Intein-Associated Homing Endonucleases, Joshua J. Skydel

Honors Scholar Theses

Inteins are molecular parasites that have been identified in unicellular organisms from the three domains of life. The intein self-excises following translation of the host gene, and therefore incurs a fitness cost for its carrier. The symbiotic state of the intein to its host is dependent on the presence or absence of a homing endonuclease domain, which facilitates horizontal transfer of the molecule. Identification of this domain provides information on the evolutionary history of the intein, as well as patterns of horizontal gene transfer in microbial communities. I have therefore developed Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to identify homing endonuclease domains …

Models For Hsv Shedding Must Account For Two Levels Of Overdispersion, Amalia Magaret

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

We have frequently implemented crossover studies to evaluate new therapeutic interventions for genital herpes simplex virus infection. The outcome measured to assess the efficacy of interventions on herpes disease severity is the viral shedding rate, defined as the frequency of detection of HSV on the genital skin and mucosa. We performed a simulation study to ascertain whether our standard model, which we have used previously, was appropriately considering all the necessary features of the shedding data to provide correct inference. We simulated shedding data under our standard, validated assumptions and assessed the ability of 5 different models to reproduce the …

Semiparametric Regression Of Multi-Dimensional Genetic Pathway Data: Least Squares Kernel Machines And Linear Mixed Models, Dawei Liu, Xihong Lin, Debashis Ghosh

Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.