Organisms Commons^™

Investigation Of Dual Stage Acridones As A Potent Malaria Treatment, Stephanie Huezo

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

The need for potent antimalarials to prevent the emergence of drug resistant Plasmodium falciparum is urgent. Discovery of novel acridone chemotypes have shown promise for a new antimalarial drug treatment. Presently, two acridone chemotypes have intrinsic antimalarial potency against chloroquine sensitive and multidrug resistant parasites. Acridones lacking an N10 side chain are known as chemotype I acridones, whereas, chemotype II acridones are defined as having an alkyl side chain at the same position. The N10 substitution of chemotype II acridones is thought to target heme and inhibit hemozoin formation within the parasite’s digestive vacuole, and is known to provide synergistic …

Effects Of Cannabidiol On Contractions And Calcium Signaling In Rat Ventricular Myocytes, Ramez M. Ali, Lina T. Al Kury, Keun-Hang Susan Yang, Anwar Qureshi, Mohanraj Rajesh, Sehamuddin Galadari, Yaroslav M. Shuba, Frank Christopher Howarth, Murat Oz

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Cannabidiol (CBD), a major nonpsychotropic cannabinoid found in Cannabis plant, has been shown to influence cardiovascular functions under various physiological and pathological conditions. In the present study, the effects of CBD on contractility and electrophysiological properties of rat ventricular myocytes were investigated. Video edge detection was used to measure myocyte shortening. Intracellular Ca2+ was measured in cells loaded with the Ca2+ sensitive fluorescent indicator fura-2 AM. Whole-cell patch clamp was used to measure action potential and Ca2+ currents. Radioligand binding was employed to study pharmacological characteristics of CBD binding. CBD (1 μM) caused a significant decrease in the amplitudes of …

Reply To Kjartansdóttir Et Al.: Chlorovirus Atcv-1 Findings Not Explained By Contamination, Robert H. Yolken, Lorraine Jones-Brando, David Dunigan, Geetha Kannan, Faith Dickerson, Emily Severance, Sarven Sabunciyan, C. Conover Talbot Jr., Emese Prandovszky, James Gurnon, Irina Agarkova, Flora Leister, Kristin L. Gressitt, Ou Chen, Bryan Deuber, Fangrui Ma, Mikhail V. Pletnikov, James L. Van Etten

James Van Etten Publications

We agree with Kjartansdóttir et al. (1) that extreme caution must be used when interpreting high-throughput sequencing results in new hosts. The situation demands thorough investigation and validation beyond the identification of a few sequencing reads. However, we believe it is unlikely that random laboratory contamination explains the results reported in Yolken et al. (2) for the following reasons. ...

Therefore, the conclusions in our report are based not only on “a few sequence reads” (1), but on confirmatory assays, as well as a highly controlled animal model of oral exposure and subsequent measurement of immune response and behavior. We …

Paleological And Ecological Impacts Of Virus Silicification, James Robert Laidler

Dissertations and Theses

Silicification of organisms in silica-depositing environments can impact both their ecology and their presence in the fossil record. Although microbes have been silicified under laboratory and environmental conditions, viruses had not been, prior to this work. Bacteriophage T4 was successfully silicified under laboratory conditions that closely simulated those found in silica-depositing hot springs. Virus morphology was maintained during the short period of silicification (48 hours), and a clear elemental signature of silicon and phosphorus was detected by energy-dispersive X-ray spectrophotometry (EDX). However, the EDX signature of silicified virus was not sufficiently distinct from that of cell membrane or phosphate minerals …

Pulmonary Blastomycosis In Vilas County, Wisconsin: Weather, Exposures And Symptoms, Dennis J. Baumgardner, Kiley A. Bernhard, Gina Egan

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose

Blastomycosis is a serious fungal infection contracted by inhalation of Blastomyces spores from the environment. Case occurrence in dogs in Vilas County, Wisconsin, has been associated with antecedent weather. We aimed to explore the effects of weather on the occurrence of human pulmonary blastomycosis in this area, and update exposure factors and symptoms since last published reports.

Methods

Mandatory case reports were reviewed. Chi-square test was used for categorical data of exposures, comparing 1979–1996 (n=101) versus 1997–June 2013 (n=95). Linear regression was used to model local weather data (available 1990–2013; n=126); Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), North Atlantic Oscillation Index …

Effects Of (R)-(-)-5-Methyl-1-Nicotinoyl-2-Pyrazoline On Glutamate Transporter 1 And Cysteine/Glutamate Exchanger As Well As Ethanol Drinking Behavior In Male, Alcohol-Preferring Rats, Munaf Aal-Aaboda, Hasan Alhaddad, Francis Osowik, Surya M. Nauli, Youssef Sari

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Alcohol consumption is largely associated with alterations in the extracellular glutamate concentrations in several brain reward regions. We recently showed that glutamate transporter 1 (GLT-1) is downregulated following chronic exposure to ethanol for 5 weeks in alcohol-preferring (P) rats and that upregulation of the GLT-1 levels in nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex results, in part, in attenuating ethanol consumption. Cystine glutamate antiporter (xCT) is also downregulated after chronic ethanol exposure in P rats, and its upregulation could be valuable in attenuating ethanol drinking. This study examines the effect of a synthetic compound, (R)-(−)-5-methyl-1-nicotinoyl-2-pyrazoline (MS-153), on ethanol drinking and expressions of …

The Genus Cerion (Gastropoda: Cerionidae) In The Florida Keys., Yesha Shrestha, Herman H. Wirshing, M. G. Harasewych

Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

The systematic relationships and phylogeography of Cerion incanum, the only species of Cerion native to the Florida Keys, are reviewed based on partial sequences of the mitochondrial COI and 16S genes derived from 18 populations spanning the range of this species and including the type localities of all four described subspecies. Our samples included specimens of Cerion casablancae, a species introduced to Indian Key in 1912, and a population of C. incanum x C. casablancae hybrids descended from a population of C. casablancae introduced onto Bahia Honda Key in the same year. Molecular data did not support the partition of …

Extraordinary Diversity Of Immune Response Proteins Among Sea Urchins: Nickel-Isolated Sp185/333 Proteins Show Broad Variations In Size And Charge., Lauren S. Sherman, Catherine S. Schrankel, Kristy J. Brown, L. Courtney Smith

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

Effective protection against pathogens requires the host to produce a wide range of immune effector proteins. The Sp185/333 gene family, which is expressed by the California purple sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus in response to bacterial infection, encodes a highly diverse repertoire of anti-pathogen proteins. A subset of these proteins can be isolated by affinity to metal ions based on multiple histidines, resulting in one to four bands of unique molecular weight on standard Western blots, which vary depending on the individual sea urchin. Two dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) of nickel-isolated protein samples followed by Western blot was employed to detect …

Segregation Of Information About Emotional Arousal And Valence In Horse Whinnies, Elodie F. Briefer, Anne-Laure Maigrot, Roi Mandel, Sabrina Briefer Freymond, Iris Bachmann, Edna Hillmann

Sentience Collection

Studying vocal correlates of emotions is important to provide a better understanding of the evolution of emotion expression through cross-species comparisons. Emotions are composed of two main dimensions: emotional arousal (calm versus excited) and valence (negative versus positive). These two dimensions could be encoded in different vocal parameters (segregation of information) or in the same parameters, inducing a trade-off between cues indicating emotional arousal and valence. We investigated these two hypotheses in horses. We placed horses in five situations eliciting several arousal levels and positive as well as negative valence. Physiological and behavioral measures collected during the tests suggested the …

Dimethylsulfide Gas Transfer Coefficients From Algal Blooms In The Southern Ocean, T. G. Bell, Warren J. De Bruyn, Christa A. Marandino, S. D. Miller, C. S. Law, Eric S. Saltzman

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Air-sea dimethylsulfide (DMS) fluxes and bulk air-sea gradients were measured over the Southern Ocean in February-March 2012 during the Surface Ocean Aerosol Production (SOAP) study. The cruise encountered three distinct phytoplankton bloom regions, consisting of two blooms with moderate DMS levels, and a high biomass, dinoflagellate-dominated bloom with high seawater DMS levels (> 15 nM). Gas transfer coefficients were considerably scattered at wind speeds above 5 m s(-1). Bin averaging the data resulted in a linear relationship between wind speed and mean gas transfer velocity consistent with that previously observed. However, the wind-speed-binned gas transfer data distribution at all wind …

Proof-Of-Concept Of Environmental Dna Tools For Atlantic Sturgeon Management, Jameson Hinkle

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The Atlantic Sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus, Mitchell) is an anadromous species that spawns in tidal freshwater rivers from Canada to Florida. Overfishing, river sedimentation and alteration of the river bottom have decreased Atlantic Sturgeon populations, and NOAA lists the species as endangered. Ecologists sometimes find it difficult to locate individuals of a species that is rare, endangered or invasive. The need for methods less invasive that can create more resolution of cryptic species presence is necessary. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a non-invasive means of detecting rare, endangered, or invasive species by isolating nuclear or mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the …

Role Of 5'Tg3'-Interacting Factors (Tgifs) In Vorinostat (Hdac Inhibitor)-Mediated Corneal Fibrosis Inhibition, Ajay Sharma, Nishant R. Sinha, Saad Siddiqui, Rajiv R. Mohan

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose: We have previously reported that vorinostat, an FDA-approved, clinically used histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, attenuates corneal fibrosis in vivo in rabbits by blocking transforming growth factor β (TGFβ). The 5′TG3′-interacting factors (TGIFs) are transcriptional repressors of TGFβ1 signaling via the Smad pathway. The present study was designed to explore the expression of TGIFs in human corneal fibroblasts and to investigate their role in mediating the antifibrotic effect of vorinostat.

Methods: Human corneal fibroblast cultures were generated from donor corneas. RNA isolation, cDNA preparation, and PCR were performed to detect the presence of TGIF1 and TGIF2 transcripts. The cultures were …

Large Dsdna Chloroviruses Encode Diverse Membrane Transport Proteins, Gerhard Thiel, Timo Greiner, David Dunigan, Anna Moroni

James Van Etten Publications

Many large DNA viruses that infect certain isolates of chlorella-like green algae (chloroviruses) are unusual because they often encode a diverse set of membrane transport proteins, including functional K+ channels and aquaglyceroporins as well as K+ transporters and calcium transporting ATPases. Some chloroviruses also encode putative ligand-gated-like channel proteins. No one protein is present in all of the chloroviruses that have been sequenced, but the K+ channel is the most common as only two chloroviruses have been isolated that lack this complete protein. This review describes the properties of these membrane-transporting proteins and suggests possible physiological functions and evolutionary histories …

Characterization Of A Novel Protease In Staphylococcus Aureus, Adam L. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

A newly discovered cysteine protease, Prp, has been shown to perform an essential, site-specific cleavage of ribosomal protein L27 in Staphylococcus aureus. In Firmicutes and related bacteria, ribosomal protein L27 is encoded with a conserved N-terminal extension that must be removed to expose residues critical for ribosome function. Uncleavable and pre-cleaved variants were unable to complement an L27 deletion in S. aureus, indicating that this N-terminal processing event is essential and likely plays an important regulatory role. The gene encoding the responsible protease (prp) has been shown to be essential, and is found in all organisms …

Impact Of Starch Source On Equine Hindgut Microbial Ecology, Brittany Elizabeth Davis Harlow

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

Grain inclusion in equine diets can allow starch to reach the hindgut where bacteria compete for the substrate. The hypothesis was that starch introduction would cause a source-dependent press disturbance in equine fecal microflora. Fecal cell suspensions were prepared by differential centrifugation and re-suspension in media with ground corn, oats or wheat. At 24 h, corn had more amylolytics and Group D Gram-positive cocci (GPC), and fewer lactate-utilizing (LU) bacteria and lactobacilli than oats, with wheat being intermediate. Predominant amylolytics were identified by their 16S RNA gene sequence as Enterococcus faecalis (corn, wheat) and Streptococcus bovis (oats). In an in …

Increasing Compliance Of Personal Protective Equipment S Election And Use For Isolation Precautions Among Rns & Nas On A Med-Surg Unit, Megan R. Alsmeyer

Master's Projects and Capstones

Background: Due to the high potential of transferring infectious diseases and/or organisms among patients, themselves, and the community, healthcare workers (HCWs) must be knowledgeable and confident in selecting the appropriate type of personal protective equipment (PPE), and the use in technique when putting on (donning) and removing (doffing) PPE based on the level of isolation precautions required for the patient being cared for.

Project Purpose: The purpose of this project is to determine whether assessing the knowledge and actual practice with observing, and utilizing an innovative approach of video and educational tools to isolation precautions would improve the consistency of …

Characterization Of A Novel Fungal-Specific Gene, Fug1, In Fusarium Verticillioides, John Byron Ridenour

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Filamentous fungi are responsible for numerous plant and animal diseases. The filamentous ascomycete Fusarium verticillioides is a globally important pathogen of maize, capable of causing severe yield reductions and economic losses. Also of substantial concern is the contamination of infected kernels with fumonisins, toxic secondary metabolites linked to toxicoses in humans and livestock. The number of sequenced fungal genomes is rapidly increasing. However, functional characterization of fungal genes has not progressed at a comparable rate. In pathogenic fungi, uncharacterized genes represent a source for novel virulence factors or anti-fungal targets. Therefore, to fully understand the genetic mechanisms underlying fungal pathogenesis, …

Hiv Drug Resistance Among Infants And Children In South Africa: How Efficient Is Genotypic Testing?, Ellen Hendrix

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Background: South Africa has the largest prevalence of HIV infection. This epidemic impacts adults as well as the pediatric population. The presence of drug-resistant mutations to antiretroviral therapies among infants and children is on the rise. Few studies have been conducted on this topic. Objective: The study aims to determine whether drug resistance testing in the form of genotypic testing is cost-effective when deciding whether to switch to a new HIV antiretroviral therapy following drug failure. Method: An interactive research approach is taken by collecting primary data from experts in this field. Secondary sources including guidelines from the World Health …

First Proof Of Concept Of Sustainable Metabolite Production From High Solids Fermentation Of Lignocellulosic Biomass Using A Bacterial Co-Culture And Cycling Flush System, Wanying Yao, Sue E. Nokes

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

To improve the lignocellulose conversion for ABE in high solids fermentation, this study explored the feasibility of cycling the process through the cellulolytic or/and solventogenic phases via intermittent flushing of the fermentation media. Five different flushing strategies (varying medium ingredients, inoculum supplement and cycling through phases) were investigated. Flushing regularly throughout the cellulolytic phase is necessary because re-incubation at 65 °C significantly improved glucose availability by at least 6-fold. The solvents accumulation was increased by 4-fold using corn stover (3-fold using miscanthus) over that produced by flushing only through the solventogenic phase. In addition, cycling process was simplified by re-incubating …

Sustained Adrenergic Signaling Promotes Cervical Cancer Progression, Nouara C. Sadaoui

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background: Chronic stress and sustained adrenergic signaling are known to promote tumor progression. The underlying mechanisms behind this process are not well understood. We examined the effects of sustained adrenergic signaling on cervical cancer progression through increased expression of HPV oncogenes, E6 and E7.

Materials and Methods: ADRβ expression levels were examined in patient-derived cervical cancer samples. We used an orthotopic model of cervical cancer to investigate the effects of restraint stress on tumor growth and metastasis. We evaluated the in vivo effects of a β-blocker, propranolol, and HPV E6/E7 siRNA. In vitro, ADRβ positive cervical cancer cells were …