Physiology Commons^™

Dietary Isoflavones Alter Regulatory Behaviors, Metabolic Hormones And Neuroendocrine Function In Long-Evans Male Rats, Edwin D. Lephart, James P. Proter, Lihong H. Bu, Trent D. Lund, Kenneth Setchell, Gina Ramoz, William R. Crowley

Faculty Publications

Phytoestrogens derived from soy foods (or isoflavones) have received prevalent usage due to their 'health benefits' of decreasing: a) age-related diseases, b) hormone-dependent cancers and c) postmenopausal symptoms. However, little is known about the influence of dietary phytoestrogens on regulatory behaviors, such as food and water intake, metabolic hormones and neuroendocrine parameters. This study examined important hormonal and metabolic health issues by testing the hypotheses that dietary soy-derived isoflavones influence: 1) body weight and adipose deposition, 2) food and water intake, 3) metabolic hormones (i.e., leptin, insulin, T3 and glucose levels), 4) brain neuropeptide Y (NPY) levels, 5) heat production …

Improving The Accuracy Of The Vo2 Max Prediction Obtained From Submaxial Ymca Testing, Lindsay Parson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) is the best criterion measure for aerobic fitness and the prescription of exercise intensity for programs designed to enhance cardiorespiratory fitness. There are two ways of obtaining VO2 max: maximal tests, which require subjects to exercise to the point of volitional exhaustion and provide the most accurate measure; and submaximal tests, which are less physically strenuous but have lower accuracy. A popular submaximal protocol is the YMCA bike test. Steady state heart rate (HR) is measured at multiple submaximal workloads and extrapolated to the subject's estimated maximal HR (220-age). The VO2 corresponding to the estimated …

The Caenorhabditis Elegans F-Box Protein Sel-10 Promotes Female Development And May Target Fem-1 And Fem-3 For Degradation By The Proteasome, Sibylle Jager, Hillel T. Schwartz, H. Robert Horvitz, Barbara Conradt

Dartmouth Scholarship

The Caenorhabditis elegans F-box protein SEL-10 and its human homolog have been proposed to regulate LIN-12 Notch signaling by targeting for ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation LIN-12 Notch proteins and SEL-12 PS1 presenilins, the latter of which have been implicated in Alzheimer's disease. We found that sel-10 is the same gene as egl-41, which previously had been defined by gain-of-function mutations that semidominantly cause masculinization of the hermaphrodite soma. Our results demonstrate that mutations causing loss-of-function of sel-10 also have masculinizing activity, indicating that sel-10 functions to promote female development. Genetically, sel-10 acts upstream of the genes fem-1, fem-2, and fem-3 and …

Size And Organic Content Of Eggs Of Marine Annelids, And The Underestimation Of Egg Energy Content By Dichromate Oxidation, William Jaeckle, Bruno Pernet

Scholarship

Dichromate oxidation is a simple technique that is often used to estimate the energy content of eggs in studies of marine invertebrate life histories (1). We used this method to measure the energy contents of the eggs of 12 species of marine annelids. In combination with measures of egg ash-free dry weight (AFDW), these data yielded estimates of AFDW-specific energy density that were mostly lower than the average weight-specific energy density of carbohydrates. This seemed unlikely to be correct, as invertebrate eggs typically contain little carbohydrate and instead are composed primarily of energy-dense protein and lipid (1, 2). After validating …

Flash Artifact Suppression In Two-Dimensional Ultrasound Imaging, Richard Yung Chiao, Gregory Ray Bashford, Mark Peter Feilen, Cynthia Andrews Owen

Biomedical Imaging and Biosignal Analysis Laboratory

Flash artifacts in ultrasound flow images are suppressed to achieve enhanced flow discrimination. Flash artifacts typically occur as region of elevated signal strength (brightness or equivalent color) within an image. A flash suppression algorithm included the steps of estimating the flash within an image and then suppressing the estimated flash. The mechanism for flash suppression is spatial filtering. An extension of this basic method used information from adjacent frames to estimate the flash and/or to smooth the resulting image sequence. Temporal information from adjacent frames is used as an adjunct to improve performance.

Can Professional Development Programs Help Close The Achievement Gap?, C. Jayne Brahler

Health and Sport Science Faculty Publications

This paper explores the question of whether it is possible to design professional development programs for teachers that can significantly improve student test results and reduce the achievement gap for students.

The Dayton (Ohio) Foundation and the Montgomery County (Ohio) Educational Service Center, sponsors of The Miami Valley Teacher/Leadership Academy, answer this question with a resounding yes. Recent results indicate that the academy's two-year program, designed to provide professional development to help improve student test scores, not only succeeded in significantly improving the student proficiency mean score, but also considerably reduced the achievement gap for participating students.

This paper includes …

Qtc Is Associated With Obesity And Physical Activity Level For African American Females, C. Jayne Brahler

Health and Sport Science Faculty Publications

Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular or ischemic disease mortality. Obesity as a cause for acquired LQTS in otherwise healthy individuals is rapidly gaining the attention of the scientific community. African American people have a higher incidence of obesity compared to Caucasians, yet race-specific information is not available for their prevalence of LQTS. Chronic physical activity can help reduce the incidence of obesity, yet little is known about the effects of chronic physical activity on acquired LQTS. Subjects in this study were a volunteer sample of African American mothers (21-53 yr, n = 44) and …

Photoreactive Bicyclic Amino Acids As Substrates For Mutant Escherichia Coli Phenylalanyl-Trna Synthetases, Thomas Bentin, Ramin Hamzavi, Jahan Salomonsson, Hervé Roy, Michael Ibba, Peter E. Nielsen

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Unnatural amino acids carrying reactive groups that can be selectively activated under non-invasive biologically benign conditions are of interest in protein engineering as biological tools for the analysis of protein-protein and protein-nucleic acids interactions. The double ring system phenylalanine analogues benzofuranylalanine and benzotriazolylalanine were synthesized, and their photolability was tested by UV irradiation at 254, 320, and 365 nm. Although both showed photo reactivity, benzofuranylalanine appeared as the most promising compound because this amino acid was activated by UVA (long wavelength) irradiation. These amino acids were also tested for in vitro charging of tRNA^Phe and for protein mutagenesis via …

Divergence In Non-Cognate Amino Acid Recognition Between Class I And Class Ii Lysyl-Trna Synthetases, Jeffrey D. Levengood, Sandro F. Ataide, Hervé Roy, Michael Ibba

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Lysine insertion during coded protein synthesis requires lysyl-tRNA^Lys, which is synthesized by lysyl-tRNA synthetase (LysRS). Two unrelated forms of LysRS are known: LysRS2, which is found in eukaryotes, most bacteria, and a few archaea, and LysRS1, which is found in most archaea and a few bacteria. To compare amino acid recognition between the two forms of LysRS, the effects of l-lysine analogues on aminoacylation were investigated. Both enzymes showed stereospecificity toward the l-enantiomer of lysine and discriminated against noncognate amino acids with different R-groups (arginine, ornithine). Lysine analogues containing substitutions at other positions were generally most effective as …

Androgen Receptor Expression In The Rat Prostate Is Down-Regulated By Dietary Phytoestrogens, Edwin D. Lephart, Trent D. Lund, Daniel J. Munson, Herman Aldercreutz, Robert J. Handa

Faculty Publications

Background- It is well established that the growth of the prostate gland is a hormone-dependent phenomenon involving both androgenic and estrogenic control. Proliferation of prostate cells is, at least in part, under control of estrogen receptor beta (ER-beta). Phytoestrogens bind ER-beta with high affinity and therefore may have antiproliferative effects in the prostate. Methods- The prostates of male Long-Evans rats fed a diet high in phytoestrogens (Phyto-600) or very low levels of phytoestrogens (Phyto-free) were analyzed to determine the impact of dietary phytoestrogens on prostate weight and androgen receptor (AR) expression in the prostate. Results- Dietary phytoestrogens significantly decreased post-pubertal …

Variability In Broods Of The Seastar Leptasterias Aequalis, William B. Jaeckle, Brian L. Bingham, Kehualani Giles

Scholarship

Enormous variation exists in the reproductive output of marine invertebrates (e.g., in the numbers of em¬bryos produced, the volumes of embryos, and the energy that they contain). It is not clear why there is such great variability or what the population-level consequences are. We sampled a population of the brooding seastar Leptasterias aequalis (Stimpson, 1862) to collect basic information on brood sizes, embryo volume, and embryo energy content with a goal to better understand the reproductive ecology of this species. We collected brooding females in February and again in April. We measured the size of their broods and sampled the …

Hatching Asynchrony, Survival, And The Fitness Of Alternative Adult Morphs In Ambystoma Talpoideum, Travis J. Ryan

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The mole salamander, Ambystoma talpoideum, exhibits both aquatic (gilled) and terrestrial (metamorphosed) adult morphologies. Previous studies have shown the existence of body-size advantages associated with the terrestrial morph in A. talpoideum and other polymorphic salamanders (e.g., A. tigrinum). However, aquatic adult A. talpoideum mature at a younger age and often breed earlier than terrestrial adults. We tested the hypothesis that early maturation and reproduction in aquatic adults increase fitness (irrespective of body size). We reared larval A. talpoideum in mesocosms and varied the timing of hatching, with early-hatching larvae representing the offspring from early-breeding aquatic adults, and late-hatching larvae representing …

Changes In Gdnf Protein Content Of Skeletal Muscle Following Involuntary Exercise Are Long Lived, Kyle R. Kinnell, Monica J. Czarnopys, John Spitsbergen

Biological Sciences Faculty and Graduate Student Research

Glial-cell line derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a neurotrophic factor produced by skeletal muscle. GDNF has been shown to be potent survival factor for motor neurons. We have previously shown that GDNF content in skeletal muscle is altered following exercise and GDNF levels 24 hours after the last bout of exercise are significantly different than those measured immediately after exercise. We sought to determine how long after exercise do GDNF protein levels remain altered. We removed extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and Soleus (SOL), 24 hr, 72 hr and 1 week following the last bout of involuntary exercise. Muscles were processed …

Aminoacyl-Trnas: Setting The Limits Of The Genetic Code, Michael Ibba, Dieter Söll

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Aminoacyl-tRNAs (aa-tRNAs) are simple molecules with a single purpose—to serve as substrates for translation. They consist of mature tRNAs to which an amino acid has been esterified at the 3′-end. The 20 different types of aa-tRNA are made by the 20 different aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs, of which there are two classes), one for each amino acid of the genetic code (Ibba and Söll 2000). This would be fine if it were not for the fact that such a straightforward textbook scenario is not true in a single known living organism. aa-tRNAs lie at the heart of gene expression; they interpret …

Effects Of 8 Weeks Of Flexibility And Resistance Training In Older Adults With Type 2 Diabetes, Matthew T. Herriot, Sheri R. Colberg, Henri K. Parson, Tanja Nunnold, Aaron I. Vinik

Human Movement Sciences Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Flexibility is often downplayed as unimportant to fitness. However, flexibility training is imperative to maintain full range of motion (ROM) of joints, particularly in individuals with type 2 diabetes, who may experience limited joint mobility due to glycation of joint structures (1). Maladies such as “frozen shoulder” are common complaints in type 2 diabetes (2).