The human senses can be used as analytical tools to evaluate many different aspects of our daily lives. The use of our senses through organoleptic methods offers unique and powerful insights into the characteristics of different stimuli. Due to the unique function of the different sensory organs we use to...
Background: The immune response to microbial infections is compromised in beef cattle at parturition. Innate and adaptive immunoglobulin M (IgM) serve as initial antibodies during microbial infection before the generation of adaptive immunoglobulin G (IgG). Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient required by all mammals, which can improve immune responses...
The United States of America and the world are faced with three massive intertwining challenges at this time: COVID-19, racial inequity, and climate change. As a species, humans must come together and collectively address these challenges to preserve our humanity and make our world a more just and livable place...
The objectives of the current study were to 1) investigate the effect a high-docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6 n-3, DHA) microalgae product (MAL), and choline dosage in diets containing MAL, on egg production performance, physical egg quality, and nutritional parameters, and 2) determine whether choline dosage influences hepatic lipid metabolism of...
The focus of this dissertation was to understand protein function and structure ona molecular level. To do this successfully, a variety of biochemical and biophysicaltechniques were employed. A wide variety of techniques were applied to study theproteins of interest in this dissertation to probe protein-protein interactions, proteinfunction, protein structure, and...
Clostridium perfringens type A strains are one of the main causative agents of gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in human and can cause both food poisoning (FP) and non-food-borne (NFB) diseases. Several factors contribute to the pathogenesis of C. perfringens type A strains including the wide presence of C. perfringens spores with...
C. perfringens is a spore-forming, gram-positive, anaerobic pathogenic bacterium capable of causing a wide variety of diseases in both humans and animals. However, the two most common illnesses in humans are C. perfringens type A food poisoning (FP) and non-food-borne (NFB) gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses. Interestingly, these two major diseases are...
Flax seed is a rich source of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Feeding broiler birds flax seed can increase n-3 fatty acids (FA) in meat tissues and can increase human intake of n-3 FA. However, non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) in flax seed decrease digestibility of lipids and proteins and have a negative impact...
Nuclear Factor, Erythroid Derived 2, Like 2 (NFE2L2 or Nrf2) is the primary transcription factor in cellular defense against oxidative and xenobiotic stresses in higher eukaryotes. This basic leucine zipper transcription factor regulates over 200 antioxidant, detoxification, and lipid metabolizing genes by binding to the Antioxidant Response Element (ARE; a...
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is defined as excess hepatic lipid accumulation, in the absence of excess alcohol consumption and chronic liver disease. NAFLD can range in severity from simple fatty liver (steatosis) to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH is defined as hepatic steatosis with inflammation and hepatic injury and describes...