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Rapid Metabolic Response of Plants Exposed to Light Stress

Description: Environmental stress conditions can drastically affect plant growth and productivity. In contrast to soil moisture or salinity that can gradually change over a period of days or weeks, changes in light intensity or temperature can occur very rapidly, sometimes over the course of minutes or seconds. So, in our study we have taken an metabolomics approach to identify the rapid response of plants to light stress. In the first part we have focused on the ultrafast (0-90 sec) metabolic response of l… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Choudhury, Feroza Kaneez
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Population Dynamics of Zebra Mussels (Dreissena Polymorpha) in a North Texas Reservoir: Implications for Invasions in the Southern United States

Description: This dissertation has two main objectives: first, quantify the effects of environmental conditions on spatio-temporal spawning and larval dynamics of zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha [Pallas 1771]) in Lake Texoma, and second, quantify the effects of environmental conditions on survival, growth, and reproduction of young of the year (YOY) juvenile zebra mussels. These biological responses directly influence population establishment success and invasive spread dynamics. Reproductive output of … more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Churchill, Christopher J.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Functional Neural Toxicity and Endocrine Responses in Mice Following Naphthalene Exposure

Description: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a well studied and diverse class of environmental toxicants. PAHs act via the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), and studies have suggested that PAHs may elicit neurological and estrogenic effects. Doses of PAHs between 50 to 150 ppm may elicit neurotoxicity in rodent models. The present study investigated the effects of naphthalene on in vivo steroidogenesis in Swiss Webster male mice, and in vitro neural function of Balb-C/ICR mice frontal cortex ne… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Colbert, Crystal
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Improving Processing Efficiency for Forensic DNA Samples

Description: The goal of this project was to reduce processing time for forensic DNA testing without incurring significant added costs and/or the need for new instrumentation, while still generating high quality profiles. This was accomplished by: 1) extraction normalization using the ChargeSwitch® Forensic DNA Purification Kit such that a small range of DNA concentrations was consistently obtained, eliminating the need for sample quantification and dilution; 2) developing fast PCR protocols for STR primer … more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Connon, Catherine Cupples
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Benthic Macroinvertebrates of Temperate, Sub-Antarctic Streams: The Effects of Altitudinal Zoning and Temperature on the Phenology of Aquatic Insects Associated to the Robalo River, Navarino Island (55°S), Chile

Description: The Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, within the remote Sub-Antarctic ecoregion is a reservoir of expressions of biological and cultural diversity. Although it is considered one of 24 wilderness areas remaining in the world, it is not free from local and global threats, such as invasive species, and climate change. Field biologists and philosophers associated to the Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program and the Omora Ethnobotanical Park, have worked to describe the region’s biocultural dive… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Contador Mejías, Tamara Andrea
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Effects of Brain Injury on Primary Cilia of Glial Cells and Pericytes

Description: Glial cells maintain homeostasis that is essential to neuronal function. Injury to the nervous system leads to the activation and proliferation of glial cells and pericytes, which helps to wall off the damaged region and restore homeostatic conditions. Sonic hedgehog is a mitogen which is implicated in injury-induced proliferation of glial cells and pericytes. The mitogenic effects of sonic hedgehog require primary cilia, but the few reports on glial or pericyte primary cilia do not agree about… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Coronel, Marco V.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Interactions of N-Acylethanolamine Metabolism and Abscisic Acid Signaling in Arabidopsis Thaliana Seedlings

Description: N-Acylethanolamines (NAEs) are endogenous plant lipids hydrolyzed by fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH). When wildtype Arabidopsis thaliana seeds were germinated and grown in exogenous NAE 12:0 (35 µM and above), growth was severely reduced in a concentration dependent manner. Wildtype A. thaliana seeds sown on exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) exhibited similar growth reduction to that seen with NAE treatment. AtFAAH knockouts grew and developed similarly to WT, but AtFAAH overexpressor lines sh… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Cotter, Matthew Q.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Niche Expansion of an Invasive Predator (Neovison vison), Prey Response, and Facilitative Interactions with Other Invasive Mammals at the Southern End of the Americas: Conservation Challenges and Potential Solutions

Description: The Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve is located at the southern tip of South America. This large archipelago is considered one of the last pristine areas left on the world. Despite it being an unpopulated area with most of the native forest cover intact, it has not been exempt from biological invasions, one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss. Three species that naturally interact in their native range in North America – American beavers (Castor canadensis), muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus), and … more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Crego, Ramiro Daniel
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Adrenergic and Cholinergic Regulation of Cardiovascular Function in Embryonic Neotropic Cormorants (Phalacrocorax basilianus)

Description: Investigations of cholinergic and adrenergic tone on heart rate (fH) and mean arterial pressure (Pm) during embryonic development have been conducted on numerous avian species. While these investigations have documented that adrenergic tone, a continuous stimulation, on fH and Pm is vital to embryonic development in the birds studied to date, development of cholinergic tone on fH has been shown to vary even within species. Further, past studies have been bias to focus primarily on precocial spe… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Cummins, James B.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Effect of Natural Gas Well Setback Distance on Drillable Land in the City of Denton, Texas

Description: Municipalities protect human health and environmental resources from impacts of urban natural gas drilling through setback distances; the regulation of distances between well sites and residences, freshwater wells, and other protected uses. Setback distances have increased over time, having the potential to alter the amount and geographical distribution of drillable land within a municipality, thereby having implications for future land use planning and increasing the potential for future incom… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Daniel, Michael
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Manipulating Sucrose Proton Symporters to Understand Phloem Loading

Description: Phloem vascular tissues transport sugars synthesized by photosynthesis in mature leaves by a process called phloem loading in source tissues and unloading in sink tissues. Phloem loading in source leaves is catalyzed by Suc/H+ symporters (SUTs) which are energized by proton motive force. In Arabidopsis the principal and perhaps exclusive SUT catalyzing phloem loading is AtSUC2. In mutant plants harboring a T-DNA insertion in each of the functional SUT-family members, only Atsuc2 mutants demonst… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Dasgupta, Kasturi
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Exposure to Nanomaterials Results in Alterations of Inflammatory and Atherosclerotic Signaling Pathways in the Coronary Vasculature of Wildtype Rodents

Description: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death for people of most ethnicities on a global scale, and countless research efforts on the pathology of CVD has been well-characterized over the years. However, advancement in modern technologies, such as nanotechnology, has generated environmental and occupational health concerns within the scientific community. Current investigation of nanotoxicity calls into question the negative effects nanomaterials may invoke from their environmental… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Davis, Griffith M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Role of Transmembrane Protein 59 in Thrombocyte Function and the Effect of MS-222 on Hemostasis in Zebrafish

Description: Transmembrane protein 59 (tmem59) is a gene that encodes a protein involved in autophagy and apoptosis in human. A previous study in zebrafish showed that tmem59 mRNA was several folds higher in thrombocytes than those found in red blood cells (RBCs). Therefore, we hypothesized that tmem59 has a role in thrombocytes function. We injected a hybrid of control vivo-morpholino (cVMO) and tmem59 specific antisense standard oligonucleotide (tmem59SO) into adult zebrafish to knockdown tmem59.This pigg… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Deebani, Afnan Omar M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Anatomical and Morphological Responses of Cardiospermum Halicacabum L. (Balloon Vine), to Four Levels of Water Availability

Description: C. halicacabum (Sapindaceae) is an invasive plant that is considered a nuisance species in Texas riparian environments. Little is known of the tolerance of C. halicacabum to flooding and drought; however, this information may provide insight into the characteristics that contribute to C. halicacabum purported invasiveness. C. halicacabum seedlings (n = 92) were exposed to one of four levels of water availability (flooded, saturated, intermediate and dry) over six weeks under greenhouse conditio… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Dempsey, Matthew Anthony
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Dynamics of Stream Fish Metacommunities in Response to Drought and Re-connectivity

Description: This dissertation investigates the spatio-temporal dynamics of intermittent stream fish metacommunities in response drought-induced fragmentation and re-connectivity using both field and experimental approaches. A detailed field study was conducted in two streams and included pre-drought, drought, and post-drought hydrological periods. Fish assemblages and metacommunity structure responded strongly to changes in hydrological conditions with dramatic declines in species richness and abundance du… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Driver, Lucas J.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Neurological Responses to a Glucose Diet in Caenorhabditis elegans

Description: TRPV channels play a role in both mammalian insulin signaling, with TRPV1 expression in pancreatic beta-cells, and in C. elegans insulin-like signaling through expression of OSM-9, OCR-1, and OCR-2 in stress response pathways. In response to a glucose-supplemented diet, C. elegans are know to have sensitivity to anoxic stress, exhibit chemotaxis attraction, and display reduced egg-laying rate. Transcriptome analysis reveals that glucose stimulates nervous system activity with increased transcri… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Dumesnil, Dennis
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Stretching the Flexible Myosin II Subfragment Using the Novel Gravitational Force Spectroscope, and the Uncoiling of S2

Description: Familial Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) causes ventricle walls to thicken and often leads to sudden death especially in adults. Mutations in the subfragment 2 (S2) of β-cardiac myosin are implicated in the genetic disorder. This S2 region is a coiled-coil rod region resulting from the dimeric form of myosin II. It has been proposed that an elastic quality allows normal S2 to absorb force during the powerstroke according to the sliding filament model. To test the flexibility of single mo… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Dunn, James W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Effect of Acute Alcohol Ingestion on Resistance Exercise Induced mTORC1 Signaling in Human Muscle

Description: The purpose of this project was to further elucidate the effects post-exercise alcohol ingestion. This project had many novel aspects including using a resistance exercise (RE) only exercise design and the inclusion of women. To our knowledge, we are the first to investigate the effect of post-RE alcohol ingestion in women. In the first chapter of this project, information on the prevalence of alcohol use and the importance of skeletal muscle as a dynamic and metabolic tissue was provided. In c… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Duplanty, Anthony A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

In Vitro Exploration of Functional Acrolein Toxicity with Cortical Neuronal Networks

Description: Acrolein is produced endogenously after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and is considered a primary mechanism for secondary damage occurring after TBI. We are using frontal cortex networks derived from mouse embryos and grown on microelectrode arrays in vitro to monitor the spontaneous activity of networks and the changes that occur after acrolein application. Networks exposed to acrolein exhibit a biphasic response profile. An initial increase in network activity, followed by a decrease to 100% a… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Durant, Stormy R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Characterization of Triclocarban, Methyl- Triclosan, and Triclosan in Water, Sediment, and Corbicula Fluminea (Müller, 1774) Using Laboratory, in Situ, and Field Assessments

Description: In the last decade emerging contaminants research has intensified in a bid to answer questions about fate, transport, and effects as these chemicals as they get released into the environment. The chemicals of interest were the antimicrobials; triclocarban (TCC) and triclosan (TCS), and a metabolite of triclosan, methyl triclosan (MTCS). This research was designed to answer the question: what is the fate of these chemicals once they are released from the waste water treatment plant into receivin… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Edziyie, Regina E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Developing a Collection Digitization Workflow for the Elm Fork Natural Heritage Museum

Description: Natural history collections house immense amounts of data, but the majority of data is only accessible by locating the collection label, which is usually attached to the physical specimen. This method of data retrieval is time consuming and can be very damaging to fragile specimens. Digitizing the collections is the one way to reduce the time and potential damage related to finding the collection objects. The Elm Fork Natural Heritage Museum is a natural history museum located at the University… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Evans, Colleen R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Somatostatin Receptors on Neuronal Cilia: Evidence for Neuroprotection

Description: Primary cilia are essential in brain development, as mediators of sonic hedgehog signaling. However, their role in mature neurons remains elusive. One means to elucidate their function may be to investigate the function of the somatostatin type 3 receptor (SstR3), which is concentrated on the primary cilia of neurons. The inhibitory and anticonvulsant properties of somatostatin suggest that ciliary SstR3 might protect neurons against excitotoxicity, as seen in epileptic seizures. C57BL/6 wi… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Evans, Shakila K.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Analysis of Mature and Young Thrombocytes in Zebrafish

Description: Eukaryotic platelets are small cell fragments that are released into the bloodstream from megakaryocytes, and their production is initiated in the bone marrow. They are mainly involved in blood hemostasis and thrombus formation. The newly synthesized platelets are called reticulated platelets or young platelets. Zebrafish thrombocytes are equivalent to mammalian platelets and have similar characteristics and functions. Likewise, zebrafish has both young and mature thrombocytes. Only young throm… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Fallatah, Weam
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Effects of Air Pollution on the Intestinal Microbiota: A Novel Approach to Assess How Gut Microbe Interactions with the Environment Affect Human Health

Description: This thesis investigates how air pollution, both natural and anthropogenic, affects changes in the proximal small intestine and ileum microbiota profile, as well as intestinal barrier integrity, histological changes, and inflammation. APO-E KO mice on a high fat diet were randomly selected to be exposed by whole body inhalation to either wood smoke (WS) or mixed vehicular exhaust (MVE), with filtered air (FA) acting as the control. Intestinal integrity and histology were assessed by observing e… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Fitch, Megan N.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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