Senescence, permanent, irreversible replication arrest that occurs in all primary cells studied to date, is considered a cellular model of aging. Recently, senescence has gained attention as a potential tumor-suppressing mechanism. However, despite the obvious importance of senescence, its exact mechanisms remain unclear. One current hypothesis to explain senescence postulates...
Plants, animals, and yeast have the capacity to produce and accumulate neutral lipids, sterol esters and triacylglycerol (TAG). However, their accumulation and the genes underlying their synthesis in intracellular microorganisms are poorly understood.
Plasmodium falciparum is a parasitic protozoan that causes the most virulent form of human malaria. During erythrocytic...
Embryonic stem cells have the potential to differentiate into ectodermal, mesodermal and endodermal derivatives. This property makes them a valuable source of tissue specific progenitor and differentiated cells that can be used for cell replacement therapy. The first goal of this thesis is to test if cardiogenesis from embryonic stem...
PilD is an enzyme that processes prepilins that are part of the type II protein secretion apparatus and the type IV piliation machinery. Using a <em>Legionella pneumophila pilDlacZ</em> fusion strain to measure transcription, we observed a 20% increase in beta-galactosidase levels at 30°C vs. 37°C. At 25°C and 17°C vs....
Inactivation of tumor suppressors genes, which encode regulatory proteins critical for maintaining normal cellular function, is a common occurrence in cancer. Ikaros is a hematopoietic-specific zinc finger protein that functions as a differentiation regulator and has properties of a tumor suppressor. Ikaros functions to regulate gene expression as a component...
Herpesviruses require axonal transport for the successful establishment of infection in peripheral ganglia (retrograde transport), and the subsequent spread to exposed body surfaces following reactivation from latency (anterograde transport). Viral progeny are assembled and spread to other tissues or hosts during egress. I focused on viral proteins which modulate directed...
The small heat shock protein αB-crystallin is expressed primarily in lens and muscle tissue, but it is also found in lung, kidney and many cancers. Regulators of αB-crystallin have been identified almost exclusively using mouse muscle and lens specific models. It has been well documented that αB-crystallin is expressed in...
Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) is associated with malignancies of lymphoid and epithelial origin. While the precise role of EBV in oncogenesis remains elusive, latent membrane protein 2A (LMP2A) is detected in all EBV-associated malignancies, implicating LMP2A in their pathogenesis. Interestingly, LMP2A is expressed in EBV-associated malignancies such as Burkitt's Lymphoma,...
Tonia René Holverson The HPV genome contains a bipartite promoter system that regulates the expression of early and late gene transcripts. The early proteins include the replication proteins E1 and E2, the oncoproteins E6 and E7, and the late functioning proteins E4 and E5. The late proteins include the capsid...
The kinetoplastid protozoan <em>Trypanosoma brucei</em> is the causative agent of African trypanosomiasis, affecting humans, and Nagana disease, affecting cattle, prevalent in regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Our lab demonstrated that the flagellum of <em>T. brucei</em> is enriched in lipid rafts, membrane areas composed of sphingolipids, sterols, and proteins that serve as...