Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Caveolins And Njks Influence Brain Endothelial Permeability After Juvenile Tbi, David Olufemi Ajao

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Disruption of blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a key secondary event that exacerbates brain damage following traumatic brain injury (TBI). BBB disruption is particularly damaging to the developing brain – which is highly vulnerable to various stress stimuli, resulting in increased brain swelling, disrupted cerebral blood flow (CBF) autoregulation, long-term disabilities and death following TBI in young demographic. Unsurprisingly, BBB disruption and the resultant cerebral edema have emerged as therapeutic targets in juvenile TBI. It is therefore important to understand the molecular players and mechanisms involved in TBI-induced BBB disruption in the juvenile brain. To this end, the endothelial caveolins and …

The Effects Of 8 Weeks Of Low Dose Supplementation Of Creatine And Sodium Bicarbonate On Exercise Performance, Amanda Jessica Morris

Master's Theses

Short-term (3-7 days), high doses of creatine (20g/d) and/or sodium bicarbonate (0.5g/kg body weight) supplementation increase exercise performance during short term high intensity activities; however, it remains unclear whether long-term, low doses of these supplements have a positive impact on exercise performance. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of long-term (8 weeks), low dose creatine supplementation on exercise performance, and whether combining creatine and sodium bicarbonate supplementation has an additive effect. Sixty-three healthy, habitually active, adults (28 M, 35 W; 22+2 years; 23+ 3 BMI) were randomly assigned by sex to one of three supplement groups: …

Sex Determination Using Discriminant Function Analysis In Hispanic Children And Adolescents: A Lateral Cephalometric Study, Alyssa E. Sprowl

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lateral cephalometric radiographs have been used for years to help diagnose skeletal and dental patterns in Orthodontics. Within the last decade, these radiographs have caught the interest of the department of Anthropology for the identification of gender within the adult and adolescent population. Numerous publications have been made but failed to identify sexual dimorphism in the pre-adolescent population. 303 lateral cephalograms of pre and post Latino adolescence age ranging from 6.5 to 17.9 years old were obtained from University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) digital database. 25 variables were identified and plotted with all linear and angular measurements transferred into …

Investigation Of The Structure And Dynamics Of Regioisomeric Eu³⁺ And Gd³⁺ Chelates Of Nb-Dotma: Implications For Mri Contrast Agent Design, Benjamin Charles Webber

Dissertations and Theses

The detection of disease and abnormal pathology by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been aided significantly by the use of gadolinium (Gd³⁺)-based contrast agents (CAs) over the past three decades. MRI and MRI CAs play a critical role in diagnosing tumors and diseases of the central nervous system. The agents used clinically have been shown to safely increase MRI contrast despite the toxicity of Gd³⁺, owing to the high kinetic and thermodynamic stability of these chelates. However, current CAs enhance contrast at a small fraction of what is theoretically possible. This leads to the necessity of …

Development And Evaluation Of An Ontology-Based Quality Metrics Extraction System, Sina Madani

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

The Institute of Medicine reports a growing demand in recent years for quality improvement within the healthcare industry. In response, numerous organizations have been involved in the development and reporting of quality measurement metrics. However, disparate data models from such organizations shift the burden of accurate and reliable metrics extraction and reporting to healthcare providers. Furthermore, manual abstraction of quality metrics and diverse implementation of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems deepens the complexity of consistent, valid, explicit, and comparable quality measurement reporting within healthcare provider organizations.

The main objective of this research is to evaluate an ontology-based information extraction framework …

Correlation Of Shoulder And Elbow Kinetics With Ball Velocity In College Baseball Pitchers, Eric Post

Theses and Dissertations

Specific injuries at the elbow and glenohumeral joints have been linked to several kinetic variables that occur throughout the throwing motion. Ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) sprains have been linked to excessive elbow valgus and shoulder external rotation torques occurring during the late-cocking phase of throwing. Shoulder external rotation torque during the late arm-cocking phase and shoulder distraction forces during the deceleration phase contribute to tears of the labrum. Additionally, it is believed that the peak distraction force generated during the arm deceleration phase also contributes to SLAP tears and rotator cuff pathologies. Very little research has been done to directly …

Effects Of Hearing Aid Amplification On Robust Neural Coding Of Speech, Jonathan Daniel Boley

Open Access Dissertations

Hearing aids are able to restore some hearing abilities for people with auditory impairments, but background noise remains a significant problem. Unfortunately, we know very little about how speech is encoded in the auditory system, particularly in impaired systems with prosthetic amplifiers. There is growing evidence that relative timing in the neural signals (known as spatiotemporal coding) is important for speech perception, but there is little research that relates spatiotemporal coding and hearing aid amplification.

This research uses a combination of computational modeling and physiological experiments to characterize how hearing aids affect vowel coding in noise at the level of …

Regulation Of Hyaluronate Lyase (Hyla) Expression By Regr A Transcriptional Repressor In Streptococcus Pyogenes, Alexis A. Kordis

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Streptococcus pyogenes, group A streptococci (GAS), causes diseases ranging from asymptomatic to life threatening. Some strains of S. pyogenes produce extracellular hyaluronate lyase (HylA), a potential virulence factor. HylA is an enzyme that degrades hyaluronic acid, which is found in the extracellular matrix of human tissues. The breakdown of the host tissue contributes to the spread of infection. The hylA gene is not constitutively expressed in vitro, which implies regulation.

A proposed regulator of hyaluronate lyase expression is RegR, a LacI/GalR like protein. A vector containing disrupted regR was electro-transformed into S. pyogenes M-type 22 strain 10403. Growth characteristics …

Characterization Of Staphylococcus Aureus Lipase, Vithooshan Vijayakumaran

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

USA300, a strain of community-associated methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA), has become prevalent in the community. Colonization of human skin requires mechanisms that allow this bacterium to overcome the innate immune defenses on the skin, including secretion of antimicrobial lipids. Antimicrobial lipids inhibit S. aureus growth and induce the staphylococcal proteolytic cascade, producing aureolysin (Aur) which processes the lipase glycerol ester hydrolase (Geh). Nearly all S. aureus strains secrete Geh, yet little information exists concerning its function. Using purified Aur and Geh we confirm that aureolysin processes proGeh to Geh. We then confirmed that geh was required for lipase activity …

Adjustment Of Pulmonary O2 Uptake, Muscle Deoxygenation And Metabolism During Moderate-Intensity Exercise Transitions Initiated From Low And Elevated Baseline Metabolic Rates, Joshua P. Nederveen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

When instantaneous step-wise transitions within the moderate intensity domain are initiated from elevated metabolic rates, the rate of pulmonary oxygen uptake (V̇O_2p) adjustment is slowed, and the V̇O_2p gain (ΔV̇O_2p /ΔWR) is greater. This study sought to determine the relationship between V̇O_2p kinetics and metabolic activity and energy status during step transitions from low and elevated metabolic rates within the moderate intensity domain. Ten young men completed six double-step constant load cycling bouts, consisting of step-wise transitions from 20 W to 45% θ_L and 45% θ_L [lower step (LS)] to 90% θ_{L …}

Exploring Tissue Engineering: Vitamin D3 Influences On The Proliferation And Differentiation Of An Engineered Osteoblast Precursor Cell Line During Early Bone Tissue Development, Shelley S. Mason

Dissertations and Theses

Most of the load-bearing demand placed on the human body is transduced by skeletal tissue, and the capacity of the skeleton to articulate in various opposing directions is essential for body movement and locomotion. Consequently, cartilage and bone defects due to trauma, disease, and developmental abnormalities result in disabling pain and immobility for millions of people worldwide. A novel way of promoting cartilage and bone regeneration is through the incorporation of either primary cells or multipotent progenitor cells in a three-dimensional (3D) biomaterial scaffold, and/or the addition of exogenous growth and differentiation factors. The first part of this study reports …

Investigation Of Auditory Encoding And The Use Of Auditory Feedback During Speech Production, Laura E. Beamish

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Responses to altered auditory feedback during speech production are highly variable. The extent to which auditory encoding influences this varied use is not well understood. Thirty-nine normal hearing adults completed a first formant (F1) manipulation paradigm where F1 of the vowel /ε/ was shifted upwards in frequency towards an /æ/–like vowel in real-time. Frequency following responses (FFRs) and envelope following responses (EFRs) were used to measure neuronal activity to the same vowels produced by the participant and a prototypical talker. Cochlear tuning, measured by SFOAEs and a psychophysical method, was also recorded. Results showed that average F1 production changed to …

Imaging Breast Cancer Progression And Lymph Node Metastases In Murine Models Using Mri And Magnetic Nanoparticles, Vasiliki Economopoulos

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Most breast cancer related deaths are caused by the spread or metastasis of the primary tumor to distant sites in the body. The lymph nodes are one of the first places where metastases can be detected and are frequently examined for macroscopic metastases to help determine course of treatment for patients. However, little is known about the significance of microscopic metastases and disseminated individual cancer cells within the nodes. The goal of this work was to use MRI to monitor the development of primary tumors and lymphatic metastases in models of breast cancer.

In this thesis, we examined the MRI …

Exploration Of Breastfeeding Concepts Among Current And Future Parents: Results Of Questionnaires Administered To Chinese And Us University Students And To New Mothers In China, Zixin Lou

Doctoral Dissertations

The objectives were to explore breastfeeding knowledge, attitudes, and intention of future parents, and to investigate indicators and causes of perceived insufficient milk (PIM) supply among Chinese mothers. Objectives were accomplished using a cross-sectional study design. Two questionnaires were developed, one targeting Chinese and US undergraduates, and a second targeting Chinese mothers. In total, 597 undergraduates (395 Chinese; 202 US) and 392 Chinese mothers participated in the study. Data cleaning resulted in a final sample size of 572 for undergraduates (383 Chinese; 189 US) and 341 for Chinese mothers. Results showed that undergraduates in both countries possessed some breastfeeding knowledge …

Functional Analysis Of Corazonin And Its Receptor In Drosophila Melanogaster, Kai Sha

Doctoral Dissertations

Corazonin (Crz) is an amidated undecapeptide originally isolated from the American cockroach. It has been shown to affect diverse physiological functions in a species-specific manner. However, the functionality of Crz in Drosophila melanogaster has not yet been determined. To gain insight into the role of Crz signaling in vivo, Crz and CrzR null alleles were obtained by transposable element mobilization. Flies carrying a deficiency uncovering Crz and pr-set7 loci were generated via P-element excision, and the latter was rescued by wild-type pr-set7 transgene. A mutation of Crz receptor (CrzR) was generated by Minos-element mobilization from …

The Effects Of Static Stretching Versus Dynamic Stretching On Lower Extremity Joint Range Of Motion, Static Balance, And Dynamic Balance, Wenqing Wang

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of static stretching (SS) versus dynamic stretching (SS) on lower extremity joint range of motion (ROM), static balance, and dynamic balance. Fifteen active subjects with tight hamstring and calf muscles participated. Hip flexion and knee extension ROM angle was measured using a fluid inclinometer. A closed-chain method of measuring ankle dorsiflexion ROM was used. Static balance was assessed in single-leg stance on a force plate using the time-to-boundary (TTB) measurement. The Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT) was used to assess dynamic balance in three directions. These measurements were assessed before …

Metformin-Induced Pedf Expression Regulates Cell Proliferation And Lipid Metabolism In Prostate Cancer Cells, Miguel Angel Tolentino

Theses and Dissertations

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common cancers in American males. A high fat diet and obesity accelerate PCa progression and increase the 1risk of death from disease. Epidemiological studies have indicated that PCa patients with type 2 diabetes have higher mortality rates than PCa patients without diabetes. Type 2 diabetics who are on metformin, a drug to control blood sugar levels, show a delay in PCa progression in comparison with PCa patients with type 2 diabetes who are not on metformin. It has been proposed that metformin inhibits proliferation via activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) or …

Med13p Prevents Stress-Independent Mitochondrial Hyperfragmentation And Aberrant Apoptosis Activation In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae By Controlling Cyclin C Nuclear Localization, Svetlana Khakhina

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

During aging, and as a result of environmental changes, cells are exposed to elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). High ROS levels induce lipid oxidation, protein aggregation, mitochondrial hyperfragmentation, DNA damage and programmed cell death (PCD), also called apoptosis. PCD is a highly regulated process and its misregulation has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases and cancer development.

Our hypothesis is that cyclin C plays a role in the initiation of apoptosis. During normal conditions, cyclin C represses the transcription of stress response genes (SRG). In response to stress, cyclin C translocates to the cytoplasm where it facilitates mitochondrial hyperfragmentation …

Modulation Of Bax/Bak Dependent Apoptosis By Sirtuin 3 And Mitochondrial Permeability Transition By Sirtuin 4, Manish Verma

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Mitochondria are dynamic organelles that regulate a myriad of cellular functions, including energy production and metabolic regulation. Mitochondria are also a critical regulator of cell death signaling cascades modulating both apoptotic and necrotic cell death. However, what determines which cell death pathway is activated is still unclear. The mitochondrial/intrinsic pathway of apoptosis is dependent on the activation of pro-apoptotic proteins, Bax and Bak, which induce mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization (MOMP). Once the integrity of outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM) is compromised, pro-apoptotic intermembrane space proteins like cytochrome c, Smac/Diablo, Omi/HtrA2 and AIF are released into the cytoplasm, which activates the post-mitochondrial …

Examining Mediators To Physical Activity As A Link To Interventional Efforts Aimed At Increasing Activity Levels And Improving Physical Functioning In Older Adults, Christopher Dondzila

Theses and Dissertations

The number of older adults living in the United States is growing at an increasingly rapid rate, and is host to a high prevalence of chronic diseases and physical impairments. Physical activity and exercise have been shown to be beneficial in impacting such conditions, yet the majority of older adults remain inactive. The purpose of this dissertation was to employ a sequence of studies to investigate mediators to physical activity, leading to an intervention to increase activity and promote health.

The purpose of Project VOICE was to examine whether awareness and utilization of community resources to promote physical activity and …

Comparison Of Potential Salmonella Portals Of Entry And Tissue Distribution Following Challenge Of Poultry, Gopala Krishna Kallapura Sheshagiri

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following studies evaluated our hypothesis that transmission by the fecal-respiratory route may be a viable portal of entry for Salmonella and could explain some clinical impressions of relatively low-dose infectivity under field conditions in relation to the requisite high oral challenge dose that is typically required for infection of poultry through the oral route in laboratory studies. Initial field reports indicating tracheal sampling to be a sensitive tool for monitoring Salmonella infection in commercial flocks, suggested that tracheal contamination could be a good indicator of Salmonella infection under commercial conditions. Further, a usual assumption regarding airborne Salmonella reaching the …

Design, Development, And Characterization Of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides For Pharmaceutical Applications, Yazan H. Akkam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Candida species are the fourth leading cause of nosocomial infection. The increased incidence of drug-resistant Candida species has emphasized the need for new antifungal drugs. Histatin 5 is a naturally occurring human salivary antifungal peptide and the first line of defense against infections of the oral cavity. This research has focused on understanding the activity of histatin 5, and subsequently designing novel peptides that may serve as models for the further development of therapeutics to treat fungal infection.

This objective has been achieved in three steps: studying the structural requirement of histatin 5 involved in antifungal activity, the identification of …

Bioengineering The Expression Of Active Recombinant Human Cathepsin G, Enteropeptidase, Neutrophil Elastase, And C-Reactive Protein In Yeast, Eliot T. Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The yeasts Pichia pastoris and Kluyveromyces lactis were used to express several recombinant human proteins for further biochemical characterization. Two substitution variants of recombinant human enteropeptidase light chain (rhEPL) were engineered to modify the extended substrate specificity of this serine protease. Both were secreted as active enzymes in excess of 1.7 mg/L in P. pastoris fermentation broth. The substitution variant rhEPL R96Q showed significantly reduced specificities for the preferred substrate sequences DDDDK and DDDDR; however, the rhEPL Y174R variant displayed improved specificities for these substrate sequences relative to all other reported variants of this enzyme. The neutrophil serine proteases human …

Regulating Rsma Expression In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Sean D. Stacey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a Gram-negative bacillus, commonly infects immunocompromised individuals and uses a variety of virulence factors to persist in these hosts. The posttranscriptional regulator, RsmA, plays a role in the expression of many virulence factors in P. aeruginosa. RsmA up regulates virulence factors used in colonizing hosts. However, regulation of rsmA is not well elucidated. Transposon mutagenesis was performed on P. aeruginosa containing a transcriptional rsmA-lacZ fusion to answer this question. Mutants were screened via β-galactosidase assay and transposon insertions identified via arbitrary PCR. A probable MFS transporter, we named mtpX, was one significant transposon mutant identified. …

Conformational Dynamics Of K-Ras And H-Ras Proteins: Is There Functional Specificity At The Catalytic Domain?, Nandini Rambahal

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Ras proteins serve as crucial signaling modulators in cell proliferation through their ability to hydrolyze GTP and exist in a GTP “on” state and GTP “off” state. There are three different human Ras isoforms: H-ras, N-ras and K-ras (4A and 4B). Although their sequence identity is very high at the catalytic domain, these isoforms differ in their ability to activate different effectors and hence different signaling pathways. Much of the previous work on this topic has attributed this difference to the hyper variable region of Ras proteins, which contains most of the sequence variance among the isoforms and encodes specificity …

A Novel Cardiac Function Of Sumo2/3 And Senp5 Dependent Pathway And Its Physiological Impact On Congestive Cardiomyopathy, Eun Young Kim

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

A Novel cardiac function of SUMO2/3 and SENP5 dependent pathway and its physiologic impact on congestive cardiomyopathy

Publication No.___________

Eun Young Kim, M.S.

Supervisory professor: Robert J. Schwartz, Ph.D.

SUMOylation regulates diverse cellular processes including transcription, cell cycle, protein stability, and apoptosis. Although SUMO1 has been extensively studied so far, relevance of SUMO2/3 is unclear, especially in heart. Here we show that failing heart induces SUMO2/3 conjugation. Increased SUMO2/3-dependent modification leads to congestive heart disease such as cardiac hypertrophy by promoting cardiac cell death. Calpain2 and Calpastatin as a novel SUMO2 targets have been known to be involved in mitochondrial-independent …

Network Dynamics Of Visual Naming, Christopher R. Conner

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Recognition and naming of objects and actions are fundamental components of language. They involve several different systems working in coordination to accomplish a complex behavior. During visual naming, sensory and semantic processing are carried out by dedicated cortical substrates in the temporal and occipital lobes, while response selection and articulatory planning are handled by prefrontal cortex. Despite decades of research using lesion analysis, functional MRI and electro-encephalography, the precise dynamics involved remain unknown due to the inadequate spatio-temporal resolution of these methodologies. Of particular interest is the organization of semantic knowledge and the degree of serial and parallel organization of …

Development And Characterization Of An In Vitro Four-Species Anaerobic Dental Biofilm Model, Fernando Andrade

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Dental caries is the most common chronic disease worldwide. It is characterized by the demineralization of tooth enamel caused by acid produced by cariogenic dental bacteria growing on tooth surfaces, termed bacterial biofilms. Cariogenesis is a complex biological process that is influence by multiple factors and is not attributed to a sole causative agent. Instead, caries is associated with multispecies microbial biofilm communities composed of some bacterial species that directly influence the development of a caries lesion and other species that are seemingly benign but must contribute to the community in an uncharacterized way. Clinical analysis of dental caries and …

A Genomic Approach To Identify The Notch Pathway As A Putative Tumor Suppressor In Endometrial Cancer, Rajshi Gandhi

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological malignancy and the fourth most frequently diagnosed cancer among women. The molecular changes that distinguish normal endometrium from endometrial carcinoma are not thoroughly understood. Identification of these changes could potentially aid in identifying at-risk women who are especially prone to develop endometrial cancer, such as obese women and women with Lynch Syndrome.

A microarray analysis was performed using normal endometrium from thin and obese women and cancerous endometrium from obese women. We validated the differential expression of ten genes whose expression was significantly up-regulated or down-regulated using qRT-PCR. All of the genes had …

Mechanism Of Lpa-Induced Lipid Uptake In Macrophages, Kan Xu

Masters Theses

Cardiovascular disease, currently the leading cause of mortality throughout the developed countries, is mainly caused by atherosclerosis, which is recognized as a chronic inflammatory disease. Atherosclerotic plaques are characterized by accumulations of lipid in arterial walls together with infiltration of macrophages. These macrophages differentiate from monocytes which transform into foam cells through phagocytizing various forms of lipid, are believed to be the main component of early atherosclerotic lesions.

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), a potent bioactive lipid, regulates a broad range of cellular functions in various cell types. In our findings, LPA-induced macrophages may enhance the lipid uptake effect in both J774A.1-mouse …