Skeletal muscles provide several functions, including, yet not limited to, voluntary body movement and locomotion, posture and body position, and soft tissue support. Skeletal muscles also play a role in metabolism, requiring energy to facilitate contraction. Each skeletal muscle serves a different purpose despite seeming to perform the same task....
Specialized or secondary metabolism is a collection of pathways and small molecules that, while beneficial to an organism, are not strictly necessary for survival. Plants use secondary metabolites to, among other things, attract pollinators, defend against biotic and abiotic stressors, and form symbioses. Natural products from plants have seen an...
Immobilized proteins are integral components of a number of important technologies, including the principal component of many biosensors, as functional coatings in various implants, as catalysts is industrial biosynthesis, and as the building blocks of next-generation nanotechnologies. Despite their ubiquity, relatively little is known about the processes that shape immobilized...
Many research projects suffer from limited data causing poor statistical analysis or limited results. The movement to high throughput methods has been building for many years and cross many different disciplines. Lots of these methods start out using pathways that generate large amounts of data but have limited methods to...
While the role of ubiquitin in protein degradation is well established, the role of other ubiquitin-like proteins (UBLs) in protein degradation is less clear. Neural precursor cell expressed developmentally down-regulated protein 8 (NEDD8) is the UBL with the highest level of amino acid identity when compared to ubiquitin. Here we...
Vitamin E (VitE) is necessary for vertebrate embryonic development. VitE prevents lipid peroxidation (LPO), which requires detoxification by cellular antioxidant systems subsequently involving reducing power derived from energy metabolism. Thus, VitE protects metabolic networks in the developing embryo and the integrated gene expression networks compensating for and impaired by LPO-induced...
Oligotrophic bacteria are adapted to low nutrient concentrations. As most of the ocean is oligotrophic (low in nutrients), oligotrophic bacteria thrive in the ocean and make up the majority of planktonic cells. Because of this, oligotrophs are crucial to oceanic nutrient cycles. However, marine oligotrophic bacteria are dwarfed by their...
Altogether, this dissertation highlights the value of mass spectrometry-based analysis of intact proteins for solving problems related to understanding disease mechanisms and developing new therapeutics.
Mutations to the antioxidant enzyme Cu, Zn Superoxide Dismutase (SOD1) perturb protein structure in vivo to cause 2-5% of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cases. Metal-deficient...
Oomycetes are an important group of organisms with a variety of ecological roles similar to fungi. Although many are well-studied plant pathogens known for their devastating effects on agricultural systems, most are little-studied saprobes and parasites of plants and animals in nearly every ecosystem on earth. The advent of affordable...
This dissertation consists of four studies of Populus and Eucalyptus biotechnology and genomic science: 1) induction of floral sterility by tapetal expression of the ribonuclease Barnase in Populus; 2) CRISPR Cas9-mediated gene editing targeting LEAFY (LFY) and AGAMOUS (AG) homologs in Populus; 3) induction of floral sterility by CRISPR Cas9...