Ubiquitination is a process that marks proteins for various cell-signaling pathways, namely protein degradation and other processes. Th ese pathways are essential in a wide array of cellular processes, including defense mechanisms against invading pathogens. Th e ubiquitination process is universally found in all eukaryotic organisms, including plants and animals, and thus plays a vital role in cellular homeostasis. Recently, more discoveries have been made on prokaryotic eff ector proteins that hijack the ubiquitination system even when they do not possess a ubiquitin system of their own. MavC, also known as lpg2147 (Gan, Nakayasu, Hollenbeck, & Luo, 2019; Puvar et al., 2020; Valleau et al., 2018), has been found to be a ubiquitinating enzyme that ubiquitinates UbE2N by bypassing the usual E1, E2, E3 ubiquitination pathway. MavC plays an important role in the infection of Legionella pneumophila, which is the culprit of Legionnaires’ disease. Th rough earlier molecular biology analysis, it has been discovered that a neighboring gene on the same locus as MavC encodes lpg2149, which has been characterized to inhibit MavC’s function. Given the novelty of this protein, this research project aims to achieve cloning, expression, and purifi cation of lpg2149 so that in its inhibitory complex lpg2149 can be captured by X-ray crystallography. An attempt was made to crystallize and obtain the structure of lpg2149 with MavC. With the optimization of lpg2149 production demonstrated in this project, a better understanding of L. pneumophila pathogenesis can be obtained, which would help in our understanding of regulating L. pneumophila infection.
{"title":"A Nosy Neighbor: Purification and Functional Characterization of Lpg2149","authors":"Ashley M. Holahan","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1502","url":null,"abstract":"Ubiquitination is a process that marks proteins for various cell-signaling pathways, namely protein degradation and other processes. Th ese pathways are essential in a wide array of cellular processes, including defense mechanisms against invading pathogens. Th e ubiquitination process is universally found in all eukaryotic organisms, including plants and animals, and thus plays a vital role in cellular homeostasis. Recently, more discoveries have been made on prokaryotic eff ector proteins that hijack the ubiquitination system even when they do not possess a ubiquitin system of their own. MavC, also known as lpg2147 (Gan, Nakayasu, Hollenbeck, & Luo, 2019; Puvar et al., 2020; Valleau et al., 2018), has been found to be a ubiquitinating enzyme that ubiquitinates UbE2N by bypassing the usual E1, E2, E3 ubiquitination pathway. MavC plays an important role in the infection of Legionella pneumophila, which is the culprit of Legionnaires’ disease. Th rough earlier molecular biology analysis, it has been discovered that a neighboring gene on the same locus as MavC encodes lpg2149, which has been characterized to inhibit MavC’s function. Given the novelty of this protein, this research project aims to achieve cloning, expression, and purifi cation of lpg2149 so that in its inhibitory complex lpg2149 can be captured by X-ray crystallography. An attempt was made to crystallize and obtain the structure of lpg2149 with MavC. With the optimization of lpg2149 production demonstrated in this project, a better understanding of L. pneumophila pathogenesis can be obtained, which would help in our understanding of regulating L. pneumophila infection.","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82928284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Sociology of Trust in Science: Evaluating and Predicting Levels of Scientism in Indiana Residents","authors":"Sohinee Bera","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1490","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1490","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83641520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Copper is an essential metal that is key in many metabolic functions and is a cofactor in many enzymes. Excess copper exposure has been associated with fatigue, weakness, and neurologic dysfunction in humans. Zebrafish have a high degree of genome sequence homology to humans and were used as the animal model for copper toxicity studies. Survival and then behavioral and morphological changes at sublethal concentrations were assessed in developing zebrafish with exposure from 1 to 120 hours postfertilization. Exposure concentrations included 0, 13, 130, and 1,300 parts per billion (ppb) to span the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory level in drinking water for the survival analyses and were revised to sublethal concentrations of 0, 13, and 130 ppb for the behavior and morphology assessments. It was hypothesized that zebrafish exposed to higher concentrations of copper during embryogenesis and early larval development would show signs of increased physiological and behavioral stress as well as abnormalities in morphology. Copper caused mortality at 1,300 ppb and was excluded from further studies. Behavioral studies using the visual motor response test revealed decreased total distance moved, velocity, and time spent moving at 130 ppb in light phases (p 0.05). In addition, larvae exhibited significantly decreased head width, head length, total length, brain length, and eye diameter in the 130 ppb treatment (p 0.05). Overall, developmental copper exposure resulted in dysfunctional locomotor behavior and morphological abnormalities in zebrafish at concentrations lower than the regulatory concentration in U.S. drinking water, indicating species sensitivity.
{"title":"The Effects of Environmental Copper Exposure on the Behavior and Morphology of Developing Zebrafish","authors":"C. Kaucic","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1521","url":null,"abstract":"Copper is an essential metal that is key in many metabolic functions and is a cofactor in many enzymes. Excess copper exposure has been associated with fatigue, weakness, and neurologic dysfunction in humans. Zebrafish have a high degree of genome sequence homology to humans and were used as the animal model for copper toxicity studies. Survival and then behavioral and morphological changes at sublethal concentrations were assessed in developing zebrafish with exposure from 1 to 120 hours postfertilization. Exposure concentrations included 0, 13, 130, and 1,300 parts per billion (ppb) to span the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory level in drinking water for the survival analyses and were revised to sublethal concentrations of 0, 13, and 130 ppb for the behavior and morphology assessments. It was hypothesized that zebrafish exposed to higher concentrations of copper during embryogenesis and early larval development would show signs of increased physiological and behavioral stress as well as abnormalities in morphology. Copper caused mortality at 1,300 ppb and was excluded from further studies. Behavioral studies using the visual motor response test revealed decreased total distance moved, velocity, and time spent moving at 130 ppb in light phases (p <less than> 0.05). In addition, larvae exhibited significantly decreased head width, head length, total length, brain length, and eye diameter in the 130 ppb treatment (p <less than> 0.05). Overall, developmental copper exposure resulted in dysfunctional locomotor behavior and morphological abnormalities in zebrafish at concentrations lower than the regulatory concentration in U.S. drinking water, indicating species sensitivity.","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79172918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of COVID-19 on Mathematics Education Curriculum","authors":"Kristen Ferguson","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1505","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85425950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interview: Mark Daniel Ward","authors":"E. Edwards","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1535","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86362224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rats are commonly employed for research to observe and understand changes during the reproductive cycle of both rats and humans. The short span and observable cytological changes of the rat estrous cycle make it a predictable component of rat research. Previous studies have divided the cycle into four discrete stages— proestrus, estrus, metestrus, and diestrus—based on the appearance of nucleated epithelial cells, cornified epithelial cells, and leukocytes in vaginal smears. However, the stage of the estrous cycle has mainly been qualitatively determined. In this study, the cycles of four rats were investigated over the course of 21 days with two vaginal swabs a day. The data collected was then stained using a modified Papanicolaou staining protocol, photographed, and classified according to existing evidence for the four stages. Image analysis software was utilized to measure the area of randomly selected epithelial cells present on each photographed sample. Histograms were created, plotting the area of the epithelial cells in 400 μm2 bins against the percent of epithelial cells present in the entire sample for the slide. Findings suggest an interstage that is present when the sample does not have any predominate cell type, which is determined visually and qualitatively as well as quantitatively through the histograms. The methods applied in this study could reduce the confusion and disagreements that exist in published reports by proposing a new model to complement existing approaches for staging the rat estrous cycle, Rat Estrous Model Identification.
{"title":"Model of Epithelial Cell Changes in PAP-Stained Vaginal Smears throughout the Rat Estrous Cycle: Rat Estrous Model Identification","authors":"G. Fernandez","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1496","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1496","url":null,"abstract":"Rats are commonly employed for research to observe and understand changes during the reproductive cycle of both rats and humans. The short span and observable cytological changes of the rat estrous cycle make it a predictable component of rat research. Previous studies have divided the cycle into four discrete stages— proestrus, estrus, metestrus, and diestrus—based on the appearance of nucleated epithelial cells, cornified epithelial cells, and leukocytes in vaginal smears. However, the stage of the estrous cycle has mainly been qualitatively determined. In this study, the cycles of four rats were investigated over the course of 21 days with two vaginal swabs a day. The data collected was then stained using a modified Papanicolaou staining protocol, photographed, and classified according to existing evidence for the four stages. Image analysis software was utilized to measure the area of randomly selected epithelial cells present on each photographed sample. Histograms were created, plotting the area of the epithelial cells in 400 μm2 bins against the percent of epithelial cells present in the entire sample for the slide. Findings suggest an interstage that is present when the sample does not have any predominate cell type, which is determined visually and qualitatively as well as quantitatively through the histograms. The methods applied in this study could reduce the confusion and disagreements that exist in published reports by proposing a new model to complement existing approaches for staging the rat estrous cycle, Rat Estrous Model Identification.","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82018607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Creative thinking is a cognitive ability essential for generating creative solutions to modern problems in most real-life settings. Despite its constant use, research on cognitive enhancement has primarily focused on other forms of cognition such as attention, executive function, and memory as well as their underlying brain mechanisms. This study aims to determine whether a single bout of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, a well-established cognition-enhancing strategy, may play a role in changing the way the brain works to support creative performance.
{"title":"Walking Your Brain to Better Ideas: The Effects of an Acute Bout of Exercise on Creativity","authors":"Alexis Swingendorf","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1511","url":null,"abstract":"Creative thinking is a cognitive ability essential for generating creative solutions to modern problems in most real-life settings. Despite its constant use, research on cognitive enhancement has primarily focused on other forms of cognition such as attention, executive function, and memory as well as their underlying brain mechanisms. This study aims to determine whether a single bout of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, a well-established cognition-enhancing strategy, may play a role in changing the way the brain works to support creative performance.","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81822123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Annalise Bland, Zainab Husain, Breanna Martin-O'Dell, Sarah Gronceski
One of the defi ning characteristics of neurogenetic syndromes such as Angelman syndrome (AS) and Down syndrome (DS) is delayed language development. Although it is commonly reported that parenting stress is associated with language development, these associations have not been widely studied in AS and DS despite other research showing elevated stress levels in the parents of these children. To fi ll this gap in research, the present study examined how parenting stress relates to language production in children with AS and DS. Daylong recordings were obtained from 72 participants using a Language Environment Analysis recording device, which was then processed through an online program to produce vocal productivity scores. Parents of these participants fi lled out the Parenting Stress Index, Fourth Edition Short Form to report their stress levels. Using linear regression, data was analyzed to determine if there is an association between language levels and parenting stress in a lowrisk (LR) group and if the magnitude of that association was stronger in either the AS group or the DS group than in the LR group. Results suggested trends toward negative associations between parenting stress and language levels, though the association was not statistically signifi cant. Th e magnitude of these associations did not diff er signifi cantly between groups. Th is negative association should be examined more with larger sample sizes, as it is important to the future development of early intervention techniques for children with AS and DS and their families.
{"title":"Parenting Stress and Language Development in Children: Associations in Angelman Syndrome and Down Syndrome","authors":"Annalise Bland, Zainab Husain, Breanna Martin-O'Dell, Sarah Gronceski","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1518","url":null,"abstract":"One of the defi ning characteristics of neurogenetic syndromes such as Angelman syndrome (AS) and Down syndrome (DS) is delayed language development. Although it is commonly reported that parenting stress is associated with language development, these associations have not been widely studied in AS and DS despite other research showing elevated stress levels in the parents of these children. To fi ll this gap in research, the present study examined how parenting stress relates to language production in children with AS and DS. Daylong recordings were obtained from 72 participants using a Language Environment Analysis recording device, which was then processed through an online program to produce vocal productivity scores. Parents of these participants fi lled out the Parenting Stress Index, Fourth Edition Short Form to report their stress levels. Using linear regression, data was analyzed to determine if there is an association between language levels and parenting stress in a lowrisk (LR) group and if the magnitude of that association was stronger in either the AS group or the DS group than in the LR group. Results suggested trends toward negative associations between parenting stress and language levels, though the association was not statistically signifi cant. Th e magnitude of these associations did not diff er signifi cantly between groups. Th is negative association should be examined more with larger sample sizes, as it is important to the future development of early intervention techniques for children with AS and DS and their families.","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85926262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quantifying Changes in Muscle Force in the Presence of Fatigue","authors":"Emily A. Bywater","doi":"10.7771/2158-4052.1436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7771/2158-4052.1436","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":30386,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85146648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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