The current status of our knowledge of synaptic plasticity comes largely from studies of the hippocampus and the context of learning and memory. We remain largely ignorant of plasticity in other neural systems and contexts. The molecular basis of...
Interactions between chemokines and their receptors are involved in organ- specific homing and propagation of metastatic breast cancer (BrCa) cells. BrCa cells express higher levels of CXCR4 and CXCR7 mRNA and cell surface protein, than normal...
The mechanisms by which estrogens regulate mitochondrial activity are not completely understood. Chronic treatment of ovariectomized rats with estradiol (E 2 ) increased the amount of Nuclear Respiratory Factor-1 (NRF-1) protein in cerebral blood...
This thesis begins by reviewing human N-acetyltransferases (Chapter I), then outlines experiments involving human hepatocytes and rat N-acetyltransferases (Chapters II-V). These experiments facilitated the development of a dissertation project...
This project investigated the effect of hypothermia on the monocyte response with the goal of understanding, which intracellular processes are affected by hypothermia leading to differences in cytokine secretion. A better understanding of the...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by repressing translation or stimulating mRNA degradation. In this study, I tested the hypothesis that miRNAs are differentially expressed in antiestrogen-sensitive MCF-7...
Embryonic development requires the orchestration of temporally precise genetic events that culminate in the formation of a complete organism. The molecular mechanisms responsible for ontogenesis are regulated by environmental and somatic factors in...
N-acetyltransferase 1 (NAT1) is a phase II metabolic enzyme responsible for the biotransformation of aromatic and heterocyclic amine carcinogens such as 4-aminobiphenyl (ASP). NAT1 catalyzes N-acetylation of arylamines as well as the 0-acetylation...
The lipid aldehydes, 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE) and propene-2-al (acrolein) are reactive α,β-unsaturated aldehydes generated during the peroxidation of lipids and are implicated in the pathogenesis of several oxidative-stress mediated diseases,...
Myocardial infarction; Glucose--Metabolism; Mitochondrial DNA
Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the USA. During the development of heart failure, many cardiac parameters change at the same time including fuel metabolism, oxidative stress and mitochondrial function. Each of these...
Unrepaired DNA damage poses a serious threat to the genetic stability of a replicating cell. One mechanism of tolerating this damage is translesion DNA synthesis (TLS), in which an accessory polymerase synthesizes DNA directly across from a damaged...
Multiple normalization methods have been proposed for the analysis of microRNA microarray expression profiles but there is no consensus method. One of the more robust methods, quantile normalization, is commonly used in transcript (mRNA) studies...
Recent advances in high throughput methodologies offer researchers the ability to understand complex systems via high dimensional and multi-relational data. One example is the realm of molecular biology where disparate data (such as gene sequence,...
Due to the complex nature of interactions at the genomic level as well as the large number of proteins present in an organism, understanding the functions of various genes that are expressed is essential. Creating an analysis pipeline for Expressed...
Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes the often-fatal infectious disease Tuberculosis, and infects approximately one third of the world's population. Gaining a better understanding of how these bacteria regulate gene expression for intracellular...
Spinal cord injury (SCI) can be divided into two distinct stages, an initial mechanical impact and a later "secondary injury" resulting from a cascade of cytokines triggering a spreading demyelination and apoptosis of neurons and glia...
Recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms of mutagenesis indicate that most mutations are dependent on the activity of translesion synthesis DNA polymerases. The impact of reducing the level of these polymerases on mutagenesis and...
The fundamental question of the exact nature of the role played by TNF in the failing myocardium remains one of contention. Many preclinical studies have demonstrated beneficial effects with TNF antagonism and recently the dichotomous role played...
Mucin 1 (MUC1) is a plasma membrane-bound glycoprotein that plays a protective role in corneal epithelial cells. Two full-length splice variants of MUCl: MUCl/B and MUCl/A, that differ by the inclusion of 27 bp from intron 1 and a SNP in MUCl/A,...
Collateral sprouting (CS) occurs when uninjured axons respond to denervated tissue surrounding the axon by growing branches of the axon to reinnervate the denervated zone. This process is signaled by factors released by the denervated tissue. Nerve...
