Human exposure to the carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) and dibenzo[a,l]pyrene (DB[a,l]P) is through environmental complex mixtures, such as urban dust particulate matter (UDPM) and diesel exhaust (DE), however the potency of these PAH within a mixture is not established. To determine the effect of these mixtures on...
The emerging field of regenerative medicine is mainly approached by two different aspects. First is the use of stem cell based models to generate a suite of differentiated cells for therapeutic applications and the alternative approach is to utilize the non-mammalian models that have the inherent capacity to regenerate their...
Molecular genetic and enzymological techniques have been employed to study secondary metabolite biosynthesis. These investigations have focused on two projects: the cloning and heterologous expression of biosynthetic gene clusters from unculturable marine organisms and the characterization of individual enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of the antifungal agent blasticidin S. The...
Passive sampling devices (PSDs) were used to measure air vapor and water dissolved phase concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and oxygenated PAHs (OPAHs) at two different environmentally contaminated sites. Environmental contaminates like PAHs and OPAHs are present in both the atmospheric and aqueous environmental compartments. It is known that...
2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) has been the common munitions used in the world and is an environmental contaminant that is amendable to reductive transformation reactions. The rumen is an extremely reductive environment containing diverse microbial populations. There are 21 pure culture ruminal bacteria species in culture collection, these were tested for the...
Cellulolytic enzymes capable of efficiently degrading crystalline cellulose are a
complex mixture of endo- (endoglucanases) and exo-acting (cellobiohydrolases)
enzymes. One approach to separating these enzymes is affinity chromatography. A new
ligand, p-aminophenyl l-thio-β-D-cellobioside (APTC), is introduced for this purpose.
The property of APTC in affinity chromatography is demonstrated using Trichoderma...
Exposure to TCDD suppresses the generation of immune responses through unknown mechanisms. Interestingly, TCDD enhances inflammatory responses to various stimuli. The goal of the studies presented in this thesis was to examine the role of hyperinflammation in TCDD-induced immunotoxicity. Previously we observed an increase in Mac-1⁺ cells in the spleen...
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related death in American men. Epidemiologic studies suggest that cruciferous vegetable intake may lower the risk for many cancers, including prostate and colon. Isothiocyanates (ITC) are phytochemicals derived from cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and cabbage that may...
This dissertation examines the interaction of the linker histone with DNA and with nucleosomes. The first goal of the project was to characterize the interaction of the linker histone with DNA. Three factors previously reported to influence the linker histone's interaction with DNA were examined: ratio of linker histone to...