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Many nonmodel species exemplify important biological questions but lack the sequence resources required to study the genes and genomic regions underlying traits of interest. Reef-building corals are famously sensitive to rising seawater temperatures, motivating ongoing research into their stress responses and long-term prospects in a changing climate. A comprehensive understanding...
Rhizopogon vesiculosus is a common ectomycorrhizal (EM) symbiont of Pseudotusga menziesii (Douglas-fir) in the coast range of the Pacific Northwest. The species has been studied for its systematics, genet size, population structure, and competitive ability in several field and experimental studies. This thesis seeks to provide a more thorough characterization...
Eukaryotic small RNA (~20-30 nucleotides) are diverse regulatory molecules that repress gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, defend hosts against invading viruses and defend genomes against selfish DNA elements. Small RNA populations are studied by high-throughput sequencing of the total small RNA fraction isolated from cells, however, the...
Pyrenophora tritici-repentis is a necrotrophic fungus causal to the disease tan spot of wheat, whose contribution to crop loss has increased significantly during the last few decades. Pathogenicity by this fungus is attributed to the production of host-selective toxins ( HST), which are recognized by their host in a genotype-specific...
Caenorhabditis elegans is arguably the best understood animal on the planet.
Used for over 50 years to study development, we have a vast amount of knowledge of
the inner workings of this worm. Our knowledge is incomplete, however, without
placing this organism in its evolutionary and ecological context. In this...
Genetic linkage maps have the potential to facilitate the genetic dissection of complex traits and comparative analyses of genome structure, as well as molecular breeding efforts in species of agronomic importance. Until recently, the majority of such maps was based on relatively low-throughput marker technologies, which limited marker density across...
Drosophila suzukii Matsumura (spotted wing drosophila) has recently become a serious pest of a wide variety of fruit crops in the United States as well as in Europe, leading to substantial yearly crop losses. To enable basic and applied research of this important pest, we sequenced the D. suzukii genome...
Gynodioecy, the coexistence of females and hermaphrodites, occurs in 20% of angiosperm families and often enables transitions between hermaphroditism and dioecy. Clarifying mechanisms of sex determination in gynodioecious species can thus illuminate sexual system evolution. Genetic determination of gynodioecy, however, can be complex and is not fully characterized in any...
Gynodioecy is a sexual system wherein females coexist with hermaphrodites. It is of interest
not only because male-sterile plants are advantageous in plant breeding but also because it can be a crucial
step in the evolutionary transition to entirely separate sexes (dioecy) from a hermaphroditic ancestor. The
gynodioecious diploid wild...
Genome defense likely evolved to curtail the spread of transposable elements and invading viruses. A combination of effective defense mechanisms has been shown to limit colonization of the Neurospora crassa genome by transposable elements. A novel DNA transposon named Sly1-1 was discovered in the genome of the most widely used...
Papain-like leader proteases are found in diverse families of human, animal, plant, and fungal positive-strand RNA viruses. In addition to autocatalytic processing, these proteases play a variety of roles in the virus life cycle. In particular, the leader protease (L-Pro) of a prototype member of the Closterovirus genus, Beet yellows...
Genomic analysis is a new approach for the characterization and investigation of novel genes, gene clusters, the function of uncharacterized proteins, and genetic diversity in microorganisms. These approaches are important for the study of chlamydiae, a system in which several genomes have been sequenced but in which techniques for genetic...
Determination of the Vertebrate pedigree was a
particularly enigmatic problem for evolutionary morphologists
of the early post-Darwinian period. At that time,
practically no characteristics were known by which the
Vertebrates could be linked to any of the other animal
groups. Up to the 1850's, most research in embryology
and anatomy...
Kelso's theory of Biocultural Evolution states that as culture evolves, the variation between groups diminishes while the variation within groups increases. The theory is tested with stature, cephalic index and nasal index. Means and standard deviations for these traits are examined for 237 ethnic groups. The groups are organized according...
The putative methyltransferase LaeA is a global regulator that affects the expression of multiple secondary metabolite gene clusters in several fungi, and it can modify heterochromatin structure in Aspergillus nidulans. We have recently shown that the LaeA ortholog of Trichoderma reesei (LAE1), a fungus that is an industrial producer of...
In this dissertation I study evolutionary patterns at genes encoding antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in frogs. AMPs are short, amphipathic, cationic, secreted proteins that kill bacteria and other pathogens through a non-catalytic mechanism that involves
binding to and disrupting the microbial cell membrane. In many animal taxa, positive selection is much...
The evolutionary relationship between Frankia and actinorhizal plants was evaluated
by reconstructing molecular phylogenetic trees from nifH, 16S rDNA, and rbcL
nucleotide sequences. Subgroupings in Frankia phylogenetic trees reconstructed from
nifH and from 16S rDNA sequences were consistent in terms of plant origins of Frankia
strains. Although the branching order...
Population genetic structure is widespread in many organisms and can be found at small spatial scales. Fine-scale differentiation is the result of ecological and evolutionary processes working together to produce an overall pattern, but the relative importance of these factors in population differentiation is poorly understood. The goals of my...
The genome of the multicapsid nuclear polyhedrosis virus of
Orgyia pseudotsugata (OpMNPV) was mapped by examining overlapping
Hindlll fragments from cosmid clones which had been constructed
from partial Hindlll digests of viral DNA. Five OpMNPV cosmid
clones containing fragments encompassing the entire OpMNPV genome
were hybridized to blots of DNA...
Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by parasitic trematodes in the genus Schistosoma. 200 million people are infected with schistosomes. Schistosomiasis causes acute and chronic disease, and may lead to death in chronic infections. Schistosomes have a complex life cycle that requires passage through a snail intermediate host. Understanding...
Identifying appropriate units for conservation requires knowledge of evolutionary
patterns and risks of managing at different geographical and genetic scales. I examined
genetic diversity at different geographical scales among 11,400 rainbow trout
(Oncorhynchus mykiss) from 243 locations in 13 major river basins throughout much of
their range and among coho...
The accessions used in this study were comprised of 246 snap bean and 49 dry bean genotypes. Of these, 150 snap bean accessions came from the Common Bean Coordinated Agriculture Project Snap Bean Diversity panel, an assemblage of 59 Chinese snap bean genotypes obtained from a trip to China in...
Plethodontid salamanders are model organisms for studying evolutionary questions of gene flow, restricted ranges, and speciation. Plethodon, a diverse genus within Plethodontidae, is widely distributed in eastern and western North America. Much research has been based in the eastern United States where diversity of these salamanders is high. Because of...
A fossil-calibrated phylogenetic framework based on exemplars from each of the four taxonomic sections within Pinus was created using multiple nuclear and chloroplast loci. Calibration at the well-defined subgeneric split within Pinus with either fossil leaves and cones (ca. 45 million years ago) or fossil wood (ca. 85 million years...
The viral family Herpesviridae consists of large double stranded DNA viruses including eight species that infect humans with varying pathology from benign rashes to cancerous cell transformation. From three subfamilies, alpha-, beta- and gammaherpes, the alphaherpes contains the genera iltovirus, mardivirus, varicellovirus and simplex, two of which, the human simplex...
Fungi in the genus Tolypocladium are diverse in their host associations, but the predominant ecologies include parasites of the ectomycorrhizal genus Elaphomyces and pathogens of insects. The aim of this dissertation research is to examine the evolution of these fungi and their host associations. To accomplish this several lines of...
Rhizopogon is a large genus of ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi that grows in association with host trees of the family Pinaceae. We have conducted a series of studies investigating the ecology and evolutionary biology of the EM symbiosis shared between R. subgenus Villosuli and trees of the genus Pseudotsuga. Two members...
Osmotic stress is a common challenge faced by organisms in environments with variable salinity or aridity. Understanding the evolutionary mechanisms underlying adaptation to osmotic stress may have wide applications, including management of populations experiencing climate change, or engineering industrial organisms involved in processes such as fermentation. While Saccharomyces cerevisiae is...
Phylogeographic studies of six Pacific Northwest forest-associated
salamanders provide insight into historical and contemporary processes on
population genetic structure. Among Larch Mountain Salamanders (Plethodon
larselli), cytochrome b mitochondrial (mtDNA) sequences (381 bp) and random
amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPDs; 34 loci) supported separate Management
Units for northern and southern populations (12...
Social behavior leading to the production of common goods is prone to exploitation. One such behavior in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is quorum sensing (QS), by which the bacteria produce signals to regulate extracellular common goods. Exploitation comes in the form of cheaters which have a mutation in the central quorum sensing...
This thesis describes an investigation of the natural products chemistry of two fungal species of the genus Tolypocladium. Natural products are small organic molecules that are considered non-essential for cell growth and reproduction, and thus part of secondary metabolism. Chemical profiling of these secondary metabolites using a combination of high-performance...
Understanding the impact of mitochondrial dysfunction on genome evolution has the potential not only to provide new insights on the basic evolutionary processes influencing mitochondrial and nuclear genomes, but may also reveal novel avenues for evolutionary adaptive recovery from harmful mutations. Aberrant mitochondrial activity is fundamental to the pathology of...
Vibriosis caused by the bacterial pathogen Vibrio tubiashii is one of several factors contributing to mass larval mortalities of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) in Pacific Northwest shellfish hatcheries in recent years. Genetically improved strains of the Pacific oyster resistant to V. tubiashii would be highly desirable. This study investigates...
In broiler operations, various health problems develop during the final two weeks of the growing period, resulting in increased mortality and condemnation losses. At this stage, sickly birds were found to be systemically infected by various bacteria regardless of varied clinical signs. The main objective of the present study was...
The term "interaction" in evolutionary biology and ecology
describes the relationships among variables in two classes of causal
models. In the first, "interaction" refers to the influence of a
single putatively causal variable on a variable of interest. In the
second class of models, the term applies when a third...
The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) shows some of the most derived characteristics of any mammal: a large body size, large brain, complex social organization and a capacity for deep foraging dives that few other marine mammals can match. Despite a history of exploitation that removed hundreds of thousands of individuals,...
A primary goal of population genetics is to identify the role of
microevolutionary forces in producing observed patterns of molecular and phenotypic
variation. I conducted four studies in the northern leopard frog, Rana pipiens, to
determine just how mutation, migration, genetic drift, and selection influenced,
genetic structure of mitochondrial DNA...
Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular bacteria that infect a variety of
eukaryotic hosts and affect normal host processes. Within host cells, their
developmental cycle takes place inside non-acidified vacuoles termed inclusions. An
inclusion membrane composed primarily of secreted chlamydial synthesized proteins
called Incs encloses the inclusion. At this location, Incs have...
Hypotheses of phylogenetic and historical zoogeographic relationships of glyptocephalines (Glyptocephalus cynoglossus, G. zachirus, G. stelleri, Microstomus kitt, H. pacificus, H. achne,
Embassichthys bathybius, and Tanakius kitaharae) were constructed based on comparative anatomy and external morphology. The phylogenetic approach was cladistic and character polarity was
determined by using out-group comparison. One...
This thesis describes an analysis of the structure/function relationship of the
phage infection protein (Pip) in Lactococcus lactis. Pip is a protein required for phage
infection of L. lactis exclusively by phage c2 species. Pip, which shares no significant
homology to previously studied proteins, contains 6 hydrophobic regions; one residing...
The Pentatricopeptide Repeat (PPR) gene family produces RNA-binding proteins that target organellar transcripts. The PPR family is expanded in land plants, with nearly 450 genes identified in Arabidopsis thaliana. In plants with a Cytoplasmic Male Sterility (CMS) phenotype, members of the PPR family can act as a RESTORER OF FERTILITY...
Phellinus weirii (Murr.) Gilbertson, cause of laminated
root and butt rot, is a heterothallic basidiomycete lacking
clamp connections. Two biological species groups of the fungus
have been hypothesized, the Douglas-fir and cedar-types, on the
basis of physiological, morphological and epidemiological
differences. Single-spore and vegetative isolates differ in
cultural morphology, nuclear...
In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, understanding wildlife disease spillover is critical to maintaining protected wildlife areas. Studying ecoimmunology and wildlife disease ecology helps to understand immune and disease traits in an ecological context, which is invaluable in preventing pathogen spillover between livestock and wildlife. To investigate this...
A capsid protein termed p87 of the Orgyia pseudotsugata multicapsid nuclear polyhedrosis virus (OpMNPV) was located to the HindIII-G fragment of the viral genome by Southern hybridization. A 3.6 kb segment of this region was sequenced and an 1872-nt open reading frame encoding the p 87 protein was identified and...
Several laboratories have shown that the VV
replication cycle is dependent on the host cell nucleus.
The basic biological observation is that if the host cell
nucleus is physically removed by cytochalasin B-mediated
enucleation, functionally inactivated by UV-irradiation, or
selectively blocked with a-amanitin, the results are the
same: W is...
Regulation of expression of three genes in the polyhedron
envelope protein (PEP) gene region of the Orgyia pseudotsugata
multinucleocapsid nuclear polyhedrosis virus (OpMNPV) was
examined. These genes include open reading frame (ORF) 1 (encoding
p21), ORF 2 (encoding gp16), and ORF 3 (encoding the polyhedron
envelope protein). The effect of...
Phellinus arctostaphyli (Long) Niemela, P. igniarius
(L. ex Fr.) Quel., and P. tremulae (Bond.) Bond. et Boriss.,
heartrotting hymenomycetes in the family Hymenochaetaceae
(Aphyllophorales), all conform to a multi-allelic heterothallic
mating system. Both compatible and incompatible
reactions result from pairings of homokaryons from the same
basidiocarp. Homokaryons isolated from different...
Baculoviruses comprise a diverse group of pathogens
infectious for members of the insect orders Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera
and Diptera. Of the three subgroups, two (subgroup A, nuclear
polyhedrosis virus (NPV) and subgroup B, granulosis virus (GV) are
occluded in a crystalline protein structure while the remaining
subgroup (subgroup C, non-occluded virus)...
Plant pathogens in the genus Phytophthora are known to cause disease on field crops, nursery plants, and forest trees. The best known example probably is Phytophthora infestans, which triggered the infamous Irish potato famine. Other important Phytophthora species include: P. ramorum (sudden oak death pathogen), P. sojae (soybean root rot...
Inbreeding of the avirulent physiologic race 8 strains of Ustilago hordei was
purported to have increased its pathogenicity in a stepwise manner that led to a highly
pathogenic race, designated race 14. The analysis of electrophoretic karyotypes and
restriction fragment length polymorphism profiles detected with a telomere-specific probe
(TelomereRFLP) in...
Influenza A and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) are both enveloped, negative strand
RNA viruses which infect the respiratory mucosa of animals and humans. Despite
decades of research and development of antivirals and vaccines, both of these viruses
continue to be a major health concern throughout the world. The focus of...
Turnip yellow mosaic virus is a monopartite, plus sense RNA virus
infecting the Cruciferae, and is a model system for the study of RNA virus
replication. A cDNA clone (pTYMC) representing an infectious RNA
genome of the European isolate of TYMV was constructed and used to assess
the importance of...
Gall-associated phytopathogens have unique evolutionary histories that haveshaped both their modes of infection and genomic structures. Pathogenicity of the gall-associated plant pathogens of the Rhodococcus, Agrobacterium, and Rathayibactergenera is mediated by horizontally acquired virulence loci. The relative ease of gainand loss of the virulence loci has confounded accurate characterization of...
Crown gall disease is an agricultural problem caused by the soil-borne bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. A. tumefaciens oncogenes cause transformed plant cells to overproduce the hormones, auxin and cytokinin. High hormone levels cause unorganized plant cell growth resulting in a gall. Control of crown gall disease is difficult because after plant...
Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is the causative agent of Johne's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects ruminant populations worldwide. The characteristic stages of the disease make diagnosis difficult, resulting in silent transmission among animals in a herd for years before proper detection of the infection. The extensive...
Since its inception as a laboratory animal in the early 1970s, the zebrafish has proven itself a rising star in the world of comparative biomedical sciences due to its short generation time, ease of care, external fertilization, and transparent larvae. In a very few decades, the zebrafish has been utilized...
Environmental mycobacteria are important opportunistic pathogens for many hosts,
including humans, cattle, and fish. Two well-studied species are Mycobacterium
avium subsp. avium, a significant cause of disseminated bacterial disease in patients
with AIDS, and Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis, the cause of Johne’s
disease in cattle. Many other species that are...
How complex traits evolve continues to be a major focus of evolutionary
investigation. A current topic of debate is the hypothesis that the phenotypic
integration of complex traits gives rise to evolutionary constraints. I studied two color
traits in the common garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis, that show a high level...
Gene transfer via interspecific hybridization within Phaseolus has
been limited by abnormal hybrid development and the rapid loss of
hybridity in subsequent generations. The most advanced embryo
development occurs in P. vulgaris x P. coccineus where mature seeds
form. However, the reciprocal cross still results in abnormal embryos
unable to...
During the beginning of the postpartum period, 80 to 100% of lactating dairy cows have bacterial contamination within their uteri. Presence of uterine bacteria may contribute to increased number of days open and services per conception within these cows. Expulsion of uterine contamination is crucial for uterine involution and reproductive...
White mold, caused by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) De Bary, is a destructive yield-limiting disease of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). Genetic resistance to this pathogen is limited in common bean. Identification of high levels of partial physiological resistance in a genetically cross compatible species, Phaseolus coccineus, is advisable. The objectives...
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Plant materials and development of genetic populations.................................... 82
Cytochrome B sequence data (FASTA format) from the paper “Seasonal distribution and environmental associations among late larval and juvenile rockfish (Sebastes spp.) off Oregon and Washington: new insights based on genetics”. The data was generated from a sample of 2534 unknown, field collected late-larval and juvenile rockfishes from the Pacific...
Electrophoretic karyotypes were obtained from intact cells of four wild
type strains of Tilletia caries and T. controversa, and 5 inter specific hybrid
progeny using clamped homogeneous electric field, pulsed field gel
electrophoresis (CHEF PFGE). Each karyotype was polymorphic and unique
relative to the other strains. However, the relative size...
RNAseq data among copepods (Calanus pacificus) were sampled and analyzed in relation to oceanographic and climatic conditions to determine if new information derived from such an approach might assist applications that use copepods as ecosystem indicators to predict fishery yields. These samples were taken as part of long-term studies conducted...
Certain insect baculoviruses are occluded in a proteinaceous,
crystalline structure which serves to protect the virus outside its
insect host. Two groups of occluded viruses have been defined: the
nuclear polyhedrosis viruses (NPVs) (Baculovirus Subgroup A), having
many virions occluded per crystal, and the granulosis viruses (GVs)
(Baculovirus Subgroup B),...
Viruses and other selfish genetic elements are dominant entities in the biosphere, with respect to both physical abundance and genetic diversity. Various selfish elements parasitize on all cellular life forms. The relative abundances of different classes of viruses are dramatically different between prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In prokaryotes, the great majority...
Beet yellows virus (BYV) is a filamentous, positive-strand RNA virus that belongs to the family Closteroviridae. BYV particles encapsidate a 15.5 kb RNA and posses complex polar architecture. A long virion body is formed by the major capsid protein(CP), whereas the minor capsid protein (CPm) assembles a short tail that...
An increased understanding of secondary metabolism in fungi is important for both biological and societal reasons. The ascomycete genus, Tolypocladium, is an ideal system to explore secondary metabolism characterization, ecology, evolution and regulation. The genus produces and has the genomic potential to produce a wide array of metabolites. Paired with...
Human-induced changes in life-history traits have been observed for many harvested populations, with a component of those changes being attributed to an evolutionary (i.e., genetic) response. Most notably, fish stocks that experience high fishing mortality show a tendency to mature earlier and at a smaller size. Some have suggested that...
Mycobacterium avium subsp hominissuis (MAH) is an opportunistic environmental pathogen that causes respiratory and gastrointestinal illness in immunocompromised persons such as those with chronic respiratory diseases or AIDs, respectively. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the incidence of nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung infections, including in cystic...
Two experiments involving interactions between wheat
(Triticum aesitivium L.) cultivars and rust pathogens were
investigated. One experiment evaluated the aggressiveness
(measured by infection efficiency and latent period) of
populations of Puccinia recondita Rob. when inoculated on
the cultivar they were isolated from, their "own" cultivar,
and when inoculated onto other...
Background: Vesiviruses in the family Caliciviridae infect a broad range of animal hosts including mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles. The vesivirus Cro1 strains were isolated from diseased snakes in the San Diego zoo in 1978 and reported as the first caliciviruses found in reptiles. The goal of this study...
A pathogenicity locus of Pseudomonas syringae pv.
syringae identified by Tn5 mutagenesis was investigated.
The mutant strain PS9024 is attenuated for disease
expression in its host, Phaseolus vulgaris, but produces
the hypersensitive reaction (HR) in the nonhost, tobacco
(Nicotina tabacum). A cosmid clone carrying 16 kilobases
(kb) of contiguous genomic...
The chlamydiae are a family of obligate intracellular bacteria that have a unique bi-phasic developmental cycle, unique cellular properties, and a unique set of challenges to studying its biology. While genetic manipulation is becoming routine in Chlamydia, there are significant challenges to working with this intracellular parasite. The body of...
An experiment was conducted to examine the responses to
selection for high and low rate of gain in the mouse under a system
whereby inbreeding was maximized. Rate of gain was measured by an
index designed to include gains in both the pre- and postweaning
periods with the gains in...
The ascomycete fungus Tolypocladium inflatum, a pathogen of beetle larvae, is best known as the producer of the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporin. The draft genome of T. inflatum strain NRRL 8044 (ATCC 34921), the isolate from which cyclosporin was first isolated, is presented along with comparative analyses of the biosynthesis of...
A method for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of hybrid
poplar (Populus alba x P. grandidentata) suspension cultures and
regeneration of transformed plants is described. The best protocol
was one in which suspension cultures were inoculated with
Agrobacterium tumefaciens to a density of 10⁷ cfu's/ml, cocultivated
for 48 hours, plated to cellulose acetate...
Crossmatings were accomplished among three semi-closed lines within a population of pigs, for the purpose of investigating effects of crossbreeding on reproductive traits. Two of the lines were purebred (Berkshire and Yorkshire); the third line ("Composite") consisted of descendants from inter se matings among offspring of crosses of the Berkshire...
Viruses and/or virus-like selfish elements are associated with all cellular life forms and are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, with the number of virus particles in many environments exceeding the number of cells by one to two orders of magnitude. The genetic diversity of viruses is commensurately enormous...
Fungi are a large group of eukaryotes found in nearly all ecosystems. More than 250 fungal genomes have already been sequenced, greatly improving our understanding of fungal evolution, physiology, and development. However, for the Pezizomycetes, an early-diverging lineage of filamentous ascomycetes, there is so far only one genome available, namely...
Five strains of the bean pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv.
phaseolicola were analyzed for plasmid number, size, and relatedness.
Each strain contained one or two indigenous plasmids which ranged in
size from 6.8 to 151 kbp. BamHI and EcoRI restriction patterns revealed that total plasmid DNA from each strain had a...
Mycobacterium avium is a ubiquitous environmental organism found in both water and soil. It can cause disease in patients with previous pulmonary conditions, as well as immunosupressed patients, with the most prevalent being AIDS patients. Studies have indicated that passage through amoeba, a common environmental protozoa, increases virulence of M....
Symbiotic relationships between cnidarians and dinoflagellates within the genus
Symbiodinium are critically important for the success of coral reefs. These symbionts
provide their hosts with photosynthetically-fixed carbon in exchange for nutrients
and shelter. Symbiodinium is a phylogenetically diverse genus that is often typed by
sequencing the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer...
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subclades that are extremely close in their genetic makeup by tracking their infection over time using
Frankia from root nodules of nine different species of Ceanothus were
characterized. DNA was amplified directly from nodular material using the polymerase
chain reaction (PCR). The amplified region includes the 3' end of the 16S rRNA gene,
the intergenic spacer (IGS), and a large portion of the 23S rRNA gene....
This dissertation describes the cloning and characterization of the TOUSLEDlike kinases genes of maize (ZmTLKs). The TOUSLED-like kinases (TLKs) are a conserved family of nuclear Ser/Thr kinases in higher eukaryotes. The maize genome has three TOUSLED-like kinase genes (ZmTLK1, ZmTLK2, and ZmTLK3). Based upon sequence similarity, the ZmTLKs are divided...
The microsporidian parasite, Pseudoloma neurophilia, is the most commonly diagnosed infectious disease in laboratory populations of the zebrafish, Danio rerio. Infections by P. neurophilia are generally subclinical, however, they can become acute either incidentally or due to experimental immune suppression. Non-protocol induced variation can confound results in laboratory experiments using...
Two diametric paradigms have been proposed to model the molecular co-evolution of microbial mutualists and their eukaryotic hosts. In one, mutualist and host exhibit an antagonistic arms race and each partner evolves rapidly to maximize their own fitness from the interaction at potential expense of the other. In the opposing...
The heritability of resistance to eastern filbert blight, caused by Anisogramma anomala, in European hazelnut (Corylus avellana) was evaluated in the progeny of seven cultivars crossed in 12 combinations. Progeny produced by crossing 'VR6-28' with three susceptible cultivars segregated 1:1 for complete resistance to eastern filbert blight. Histograms of disease...
Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) of the strains representing the 14 races of
U. hordei, the causal agent of covered smut on barley, revealed extensive polymorphism
in chromosome length and number. The purpose of this study was to determine by two
approaches the exact chromosome number for each U. hordei race,...