Bacteria are abundant in marine environments. They play important roles in nutrient cycling and form symbiotic interactions with eukaryotes. However, the vast majority of bacterial taxa are difficult to maintain in laboratory cultures, meaning that most microbiological research of the past century has focused on a small subset of bacteria....
The detection of biomolecules is critical for clinical diagnostics but requires specialty labor and high cost. The use of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (µPADs) for bioassays is simpler and cheaper but has low sensitivity. Improved immobilization of antibodies onto cellulose is demonstrated through surface functionalization with APTES and glutaraldehyde. The...
Over 100 years separate the 1918 Influenza and COVID-19 pandemics, and a multitude of science, public health and communication advancements have emerged. With the COVID-19 pandemic still underway, recently reaching the one million death mark in the United States alone (CDC, 2020), researchers are searching for clues as to how...
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the governing body for collegiate athletics and has regulated the activity of student-athletes with the primary goal of preserving amateurism. In recent years, the restrictions of this principle have been challenged in court. The Supreme Court case NCAA v. Alston (2021) challenged the...
Targeting the epigenome, including the use of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, is a novel strategy for cancer chemoprevention. Sulforaphane (SFN), a compound found at high levels in broccoli and broccoli sprouts, is a potent inducer of Phase 2 detoxification enzymes and inhibits tumorigenesis in animal models. SFN also has a...
During mitosis, sister chromatids are separated by the action of the mitotic spindle. The mitotic spindle attaches to chromosomes at centromeres through a protein complex called the kinetochore. While ~100 proteins have been identified at kinetochores and centromeres, the function of most is poorly understood.
The centromere protein, CENP-T (Centromere...
ROP GTPases are crucial regulators of pollen tube growth. The Rop GTPase family in maize consists of nine known rop genes, ropl-rop9. A subset of these genes (rop2, rop8, and rop9) are expressed in pollen. The rop2 and rop9 genes are a highly conserved duplicate gene pair of ancient origin....
Molecular genetic and enzymological techniques have been employed to study antibiotic biosynthesis. The nonproteinogenic amino acid capreomycidine is the signature residue found in the tuberactinomycin family of antitubercular peptide antibiotics and an important element of the pharmacophore. Recombinant VioG, a single module peptide synthetase from the viomycin gene cluster cloned...
Glutathione (GSH) is the predominant low molecular weight thiol antioxidant
in liver tissue. GSH plays an important role in maintaining the intracellular thiol redox
ratio as well as detoxification of electrophiles and xenobiotics. Aging leads to a significant decline (35%; P ≤ 0.05) in hepatocellular GSH levels. Using young (2-4...
This study applied a virtual rendition of the Morris water maze, which is commonly used for assessing spatial memory in rodents, to an examination of age-related differences in spatial learning among 42 younger (18-30 years) and older (>60 years) male human participants. Virtual Morris water maze performance was measured by...