Rhinovirus is the most prevalent virus in humans and is often the cause of the common cold. Modeling the dynamics of rhinovirus can allow us to observe important aspects of the virus including the general growth of the virus, the remaining target cells, the number of cells in the eclipse phase, and the number of infected cells. Following that, we can attempt to estimate parameters such as how much virus an infected cell produces or how long it takes an infected cell to start producing virus. We can use a method called Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to try and gain more accurate estimates of those parameter based off observed data. Modeling rhinovirus will give us deeper insight into the workings of rhinovirus and allow us to try better and more accurate models of the virus.

Non-invasive temperature sensing is necessary for the analysis of biological processes occurring in the human body including cellular enzyme activity, protein expression, and ion regulation. Considering that a variety of such biological processes occur at the microscopic scale, a mechanism allowing for the detection of the temperature changes in microscopic environments is desired. Although several such techniques have been developed involving nanomaterials, there is still a need in deterministic non-invasive biocompatible approach allowing for temperature measurements both outside the cells and in the intracellular compartments. Here we develop a novel approach utilizing graphene quantum dots (GQDs) as agents for such detection. Because of their small 2-5 nm size, non-invasive optical sensitivity to temperature change and high biocompatibility, GQDs enable biologically safe sub-cellular resolution imaging. Both bottom-up synthesized nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots and quantum dots produced from reduced graphene oxide via top-down approach in this work exhibit temperature-induced fluorescence variations used as sensing mechanism. Distinctive quenching of quantum dot fluorescence by up to 19.8 % is observed, in a temperature range from 25℃ to 49℃, in aqueous solution, while the intensity is restored to the original values as the temperature decreases back to 25℃. A similar trend is observed in vitro in HeLa cells as the cellular temperature is increased from 25℃ to 41℃. Our findings suggest that the temperature-dependent fluorescence quenching of bottom-up and top-down-synthesized graphene quantum dots can serve as non-invasive reversible deterministic mechanism for temperature sensing in microscopic sub-cellular biological environments.

Habituation occurs when responding to a stimulus decreases with repeated exposure. This decrease can be seen in an array of behaviors, including wheel running. In this experiment, rats ran in four different contexts (i.e., running wheels with different backgrounds/scents) for 30 minutes every day. One group ran in the same context daily while the other alternated between contexts. Rats running in different contexts should habituate less and run more consistently and at a higher rate. By increasing our understanding of the influence of habituation on exercise, results will have important implications for those wanting to maintain interest in an exercise routine.

Abstract SRS: Effects of Cross-Situational Generalization on Memory and Attitude Polarization Toward Social Groups

Serena Avitia, Akua Jonah, & Kaleigh Decker

When people generalize about others, they go beyond the information they are given and infer a level of cross-situational consistency that may polarize their attitudes. The current study investigates how cross-situational generalizations about a group’s traits can affect subsequent attitudes and memory. We predicted that participants who generalized about a fictitious groups behavior across various settings will rate the likelihood of cross-situational trait consistency as significantly higher than the scale mid-point, and report more negative attitudes toward the group than participants who reviewed the initial information they were given. Generalizers will also write paragraphs that more depict group members as displaying the original traits in general rather than only in the given situations, mistakenly recall and recognize some of the situations they rated as part of the initial information, and mistakenly report that their reported attitudes (after they generalized) were the same as their impressions immediately after reading the initial information. The predicted results will increase our understanding of the processes by which attitudes toward an entire group can polarize without any additional information.

In this exploratory, mixed methods project, we seek to understand how implementation of Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), a trauma-informed, evidence-based model of caregiving developed by TCU faculty, has shaped systems of care for vulnerable children and youth. The current study reports on the first year of implementation across nine child welfare organizations participating in a county-wide mental health collaborative. Data included monthly implementation process interviews conducted with representative staff of each agency [TBRI Implementation Strategy Use; n = 9 agencies], as well as survey data from a subset of agencies [TCU Survey of Organizational Functioning (SOF); n = 4 agencies]. The data sample reveals overall increases for TBRI strategy use during the first year of implementation. In addition, organizational functioning scores that were above the baseline mean of the sample yielded increased scores in strategy use. Future research suggests further analyzing the complexities of TBRI implementation across the large-scale collaborative.

Hope Connection 2.0 is a therapeutic camp developed by the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development (KPICD) that utilizes Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®), a trauma-informed and attachment-based intervention, to meet the needs of adoptive families. To examine its effectiveness in meeting these needs, data from child and parent measures are collected from participating families during a one-year time period. The current study specifically examines the effectiveness of this intervention in decreasing aggression in adopted children and decreasing relational frustration between the parent and adopted children from pre- to post-camp. The results of this study indicate that both aggression and relational frustration significantly decreased after families participated in the intervention. Additionally, results suggest a significant positive correlation between aggression and relational frustration, suggesting the more a child exhibits aggression, the more relational frustration the parent(s) feels. Results of this study indicate the effectiveness of Hope Connection 2.0 in reducing aggression and frustration in adoptive families, demonstrating the potential benefit of this post-adoption intervention in meeting the needs of adoptive families. 

Institutional care can negatively impact a child's development, leading to developmental delays and emotional and behavioral problems. These issues can be treated through an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention, such as Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI). The government of Rwanda learned about the effects of institutional care and TBRI and aimed to improve its orphan care. In order to do this, they found families for every orphan and provided TBRI training for caregivers who adopted these children. In the current study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 volunteers who helped train and support these caregivers. A phenomenological approach was used to analyze the interviews. Results revealed five main themes: Rwandans took ownership of the need to care for orphans; they recognized the children's need for connection; they valued the role of family in a child's life; the utilized the power of community in making TBRI use successful; and the volunteers acted as mediators in the adoptive families. This study is the first to examine TBRI use internationally, and the results demonstrate the usefulness of Rwanda's model of orphan care with TBRI implementation that could be replicable in other settings.

In academic environments, the ability to comprehend written text is critical for successful learning. In spite of the importance of this skill, few programs exist for improving comprehension, especially for typically-developing readers. Previous research demonstrated that cervical vagus nerve stimulation (cVNS) is a safe and effective method for driving neural plasticity. However, an invasive and expensive procedure is not practical for a reading intervention. Recent research has demonstrated that the auricular branch of the vagus nerve can be accessed non-invasively through transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) at the outer ear (Frangos, Ellrich, & Komisaruk, 2015). Recent work in our lab provides evidence that taVNS paired with training can improve novel letter-sound learning (Thakkar et al., under review). Thus, we hypothesized that pairing taVNS with reading would aid reading comprehension in typically-developing young adults. We recruited typically-developing young adult readers and verified reading ability using standard assessments. Eligible participants were randomly assigned to receive either active or sham stimulation to the posterior tragus of the left ear while reading passages and subsequently answering standard comprehension questions from the GORT-5 (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2012). Participants were scored on time spent reading, errors in reading, and comprehension. While data collection is ongoing, pilot data suggest a benefit of active stimulation on comprehension, as compared to those receiving sham stimulation. Implications of this work may suggest using taVNS as a novel intervention for reading comprehension, but further studies should extend the methods in a sample of struggling readers.

The purpose of the study was to compare the effects of three instructional conditions on emergent relations between visual stimuli. Participants were 75 college students who were randomly assigned to three groups. Participants in the standard group were trained to relate the visual stimuli they saw to text labels, referred to as tact training, prior to learning to relate pairs of text labels, referred to as intraverbal training. Participants in the reverse group received the intraverbal training before the tact training. The instructed visualization group received the same training sequence as the standard group but were given explicit instructions to visualize the images they learned during intraverbal training. The match-to-sample (MTS) testing format was used to evaluate the emergent relations between the visual stimuli. We predicted that the instructed visualization group would complete the MTS task faster and with higher accuracy than other groups because of their histories of visualizing the stimulus relations during the intraverbal training session. The results showed that the instructed visualization group had non-significantly faster reaction times during the MTS test compared to the standard and reverse groups but performed significantly more accurately (p< .001).

Title: Dyadic transfer of romantic nostalgia
Authors: Jordan Stables, Krissy Le, Julie A. Swets, & Cathy Cox

Problem: Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past, is associated with greater psychological outcomes, with recent work showing how nostalgia for the past of one’s romantic relationship may have benefits for the self (e.g., Mallory, Spencer, Kimmes, & Pollitt, 2018; Sedikides & Wildschut, 2018). Specifically, individuals who are more nostalgic are likely to claim higher satisfaction in their romantic partnerships. However, it is not yet known whether sharing these nostalgic thoughts can benefit the other partner and the relationship. The goal of the current study is to reveal that sharing relationship-oriented nostalgia will result in beneficial well-being effects that are comparable to those created by individual nostalgia.
Method: We recruited 146 romantic couples from a local university to participate. One member of each romantic relationship was randomly assigned either to write about a nostalgic experience they shared with their partner (relationship nostalgia), a personally nostalgic experience, or a control topic. Then they answered a variety of relationship questionnaires measuring relationship outcomes (e.g., relational self-esteem, optimism). At a later date, their partner (who was blind to their partner’s involvement in the study) read their written narrative and provided their own written response to what they read. Finally they responded to the same relationship measures. Additionally, Pennebaker, Booth, Boyd, and Francis’ (2017) Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) was used to content analyze the nostalgic essays based on affect, sociality, time perspective, and other pertinent themes.
Results: Analyses of variance were conducted to analyze the links between essay condition, nostalgia, and well-being outcomes. First, we found that the more nostalgic the writing partner was, the more nostalgic the reading partner was. Then using LIWC, we found that the relationship nostalgia essays were generally longer, more authentic, and included more first-person plural pronouns (e.g., we, us; demonstrating a stronger sense of interdependence in the essays). It was also found that reading a relationship-centered nostalgic narrative had a significantly positive effect on the readers’ positive mood, when compared to personally nostalgic experiences or control writings. These results also varied as a function of attachment avoidance and anxiety, which is consistent with past research (Abeyta, Routledge, Roylance, Wildschut, & Sedikides, 2015; Juhl, Sand, & Routledge, 2012).
Conclusions: This study has important implications for the analysis of shared nostalgic memories. We reveal that there are clear and immediate benefits for romantic relationships of engaging in and communicating shared nostalgia. This research also is foundational for exploring correlational and causal connections between shared romantic nostalgic reverie and its individual and relationship outcomes. Specifically, future work should explore additional mediating and moderating effects of the advantages of a shared sentiment for the past, as well as the duration of these positive effects.

Children who are adopted often experience early-life trauma, resulting in dysregulation and trauma-related emotional and behavioral problems. When these children are brought into adoptive homes, these trauma-related symptoms could negatively affect the attachment relationship by adversely impacting the parent’s perspective on the parent-child relationship. The current study examined the relationship between trauma symptoms in children who were adopted and the quality of the parent-child relationship within these families. Participants included adoptive families who were participating in a therapeutic camp intervention. The data analyzed was baseline data from a larger study prior to any intervention being done. Trauma symptoms of the adopted child, including anxiety, depression, anger, and post-traumatic stress arousal, were significantly correlated with parenting communication, confidence, and frustration. Specifically, the more trauma symptoms an adopted child exhibited, the poorer the quality of the parent-child relationship. Understanding this relationship and the bidirectional effects of trauma on adopted children and adoptive parents could result in better therapeutic interventions for families with adopted children, leading to better outcomes for both adopted children and adoptive parents.

Dyslexia is a prevalent developmental disorder characterized by unexpected reading difficulty in children and adults with otherwise normal IQ and intelligence. Dyslexia is a heterogeneous disorder and a variety of deficits are observed in the population, with auditory perception and rapid stimulus processing occurring most frequently. Genetic variants are likely related to this heterogeneity. One such gene that has been reliably linked to dyslexia is the neural migration gene DCDC2. Suppression of this gene in a rat model dramatically impairs speech-sound discrimination ability from a stream of rapidly-presented auditory stimuli (Centanni et al., 2016), suggesting a potential role for this gene in rapid stimulus processing deficits in humans and supporting a prior study linking this gene to reading speed (Neef et al., 2017). One potential casualty of processing speed impairments is the ability to process unpredictable stimuli. In the current study, we designed a rapid speech sound discrimination and prediction task to evaluate whether the rapid speech sound impairment previously linked with Dcdc2 also causes deficits on a prediction task. If increased presentation rate impairs the ability to process unpredictable stimuli, then the addition of a stable predictor sound should improve performance. To test this hypothesis, homozygous Dcdc2-knockout, heterozygous, and wild type rats were trained to respond to a target sound /dad/ in a stream of rapidly presented distractors in the presence or absence of a predictor sound /bad/, which occurred reliably prior to the target in 40% of trials. In wild type rats, the results indicate the presence of a predictor enhances response to the target /dad/ at low speeds, but as the stimulus presentation rate increased the rats began responding to the predictor /bad/ rather than the target. I will present these findings as well as pilot data from rats with Dcdc2 knockout to investigate the role of this gene on the response to a stable predictor.

A recent study (Petursdottir & Oliveira, accepted pending revision) found that when comparing equivalence-based instruction (EBI) to a complete instruction (CI) control condition using concurrent training and equal mastery criteria, EBI did not inherently produce faster or better learning than CI. However, this study included only a single EBI training structure. The purpose of the present experiment was to (a) evaluate the efficiency of linear series (LS) and one-to-many (OTM) EBI protocols relative to CI, and (b) to assess transfer of function following the three arrangements. Sixty undergraduate students were assigned to one of three groups (CI, EBI-OTM and EBI-LS), all of which received training to establish three 4-member stimulus classes. In the class establishment phase (ABCD training), the CI and EI groups were presented with 36 and 9 types of trials, respectively. After achieving mastery criterion, the ABCD test included all possible trial types, with no feedback. After achieving criterion on the ABCD test, all participants proceeded to transfer of function phase, in which they were taught to execute different motor responses to one stimulus in each class, and then tested with the remaining stimuli in each class. Results suggest the OTM protocol, but not the LS protocol, was more efficient than CI. The three groups performed equally well on the transfer-of-function test.

Language learning in adulthood is often important for personal or vocational reasons, but learning a second language after the sensitive period ends is time-consuming and retention is difficult. Research has suggested that cervical vagus nerve stimulation (cVNS) can help to improve cognitive function (Sjogren et, al. 2002) and working memory in patients (Sun et al., 2017). Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS), a less invasive method, activates similar brain structures as cVNS (Yakunina, Kim, & Nam, 2016). Recently, our lab demonstrated that taVNS paired with training improved letter-sound learning in typically-developing young adults (Thakkar et al., under review). The current study was designed to evaluate this approach in language learning. During a training session, they were exposed to 30 words in Palau, their English translations, and a picture that corresponded to the word while receiving either active or sham stimulation to the outer left ear. Each stimulus was repeated 10 times. At the end of training, a free-recall test was given where participants saw a trained word and provided the English translation. After one week, participants completed the same free-recall test of English translations to evaluate retention of the 30 trained words. While data collection is still in progress, we are seeing trends in the hypothesized direction such that those receiving active stimulation recall more words after training and at retention than those receiving sham stimulation.

Adopted children often have trauma–related emotional and behavioral problems, such as depression, anger, and anxiety, and these problems can continue to exist after adoption. Post-adoption, the adoptive family’s impact on these problems is not well understood. The current study examines the relationship between adopted children’s trauma symptoms and family communication – a construct that is associated with child social-emotional adjustment in traditional, biological families. Data was collected from adoptive families who were recruited to participate in a therapeutic family intervention. The results revealed a significant negative correlation between family communication and trauma-related emotional and behavioral problems in adopted children; specifically, the healthier the family communicated, the less problems the adopted child exhibited. Further, we wanted to determine if a similar relationship was found between biological children’s emotional problems in adoptive families and family communication. The results revealed a similar relationship: the healthier the family communicated, the less emotional problems the biological children experienced. The results of this study indicate that family communication may be a significant factor when considering the severity of adopted children’s trauma-related emotional and behavioral problems post-adoption.

As the threat of antimicrobial-resistant infections continues to rise, the need for novel antibiotics grows. Targeting virulence factors in bacterial pathogens is one potential strategy for antibiotic development because inhibiting virulence would decrease the ability of the pathogen to evade the host immune response. This strategy may decrease the development of resistance since the treatment is not directly bactericidal and there is less selective pressure put on the bacteria population. Our goal is to discover new virulence genes in Bacillus anthracis that could potentially be a therapeutic target. Specifically, we are interested in finding genes that allow B. anthracis to acquire iron from the host. For bacterial pathogens, iron is critical for growth and often a limiting nutrient in the host. It has been linked with proper functioning of electron transfer proteins and superoxide dismutase enzymes. In B. anthracis infection, iron is acquired from host hemoglobin through a hemolytic pathway, but the complete mechanism of this is unknown. Approximately 1000 transposon mutants of B. anthracis were screened for the inability to acquire iron from hemoglobin, and five were deficient in acquiring iron from hemoglobin in in vitro assays. Of those five mutant strains, only one (9F12) also exhibited an in vivo phenotype using the wax worm model of infection. The gene disrupted in the 9F12 transposon mutant is the dUTPase/aminopeptidase gene. Our aim in this study is to confirm that the disruption of the dUTPase gene leads to the inability to acquire iron from hemoglobin in B. anthracis. Using targeted mutagenesis, we created an insertional mutant strain to disrupt the dUTPase gene and we are currently testing it, along with WT and 9F12, for the ability to grow in iron-limited conditions with or without hemoglobin. Confirmation of this phenotype will demonstrate that the dUTPASE/aminopeptidase gene is important for iron acquisition from hemoglobin and will support further studies to understand the role of this gene in the virulence of B. anthracis.

Aquatic parameters such as increased temperatures and dissolved oxygen levels is critical in determining the survival and ability to thrive of trout species, including the Bonneville cutthroat trout. Bonneville cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkia Utah), a subspecies of Yellowstone cutthroat trout, originated in the Bonneville Basin and is native to many river basins in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Nevada(Duff 1996). East Canyon Creek is a headwater tributary in the Weber River Basin of northern Utah, and a stream where Bonneville cutthroat trout are native. However, due to the introduction of nonnative trout and multiple causes of habitat quality decline, they no longer occur in the stream. Over the summer of 2018, I participated in data collection which assessed the habitat qualities of East Canyon Creek. This data includes temperature, aquatic, and riparian qualities. Data on the corresponding summer for dissolved oxygen is available as well. When compared to Colorado’s Coldwater Criteria, it appears that the temperatures of East Canyon Creek exceeded the acute (22.1°C) and chronic (17.0°C) upper thermal thresholds for cutthroat trout(Todd et al 2008). When compared to the acute (5.0 mg/L) and chronic (6.0 mg/L) dissolved oxygen minimum concentrations(Null et al 2017), East Canyon Creek’s concentrations appear to have dropped below the identified concentrations. The objective of this paper is to statistically analyze the temperature and dissolved oxygen data on East Canyon Creek from 2018, and determine if a restoration project of Bonneville cutthroat trout in East Canyon Creek would be successful. Through the data analysis, we have found that water temperatures during the summer months have significantly exceeded both acute and chronic upper survival limits, and that dissolved oxygen concentrations are significantly lower than the minimum chronic survival level, indicating that East Canyon Creek is not yet suitable for a successful reintroduction of Bonneville cutthroat trout.

The BRCA1 gene encodes an 1863 amino acid protein that is relevant in many essential biological pathways, most notably DNA damage response and tumor suppression. In many instances, BRCA1's functions depend on interaction with other cellular components. One such binding partner is P53, another important tumor-suppressing protein that cooperates with BRCA1 to inhibit cancer cell growth. However, the nature of this interaction is not yet fully understood. Here we developed a biochemical assay to investigate the exact binding site for P53 in the central domain of BRCA1. The discovery of such binding sites allows future studies to identify the precise amino acid residues involved in binding and better predict the effect of mutations in the binding site on BRCA1's ability to inhibit carcinogenesis.

Breast cancer (BC) is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women after skin cancer. Traditional treatments of BC include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy therapy; however, these treatments are non-specific and potentially kill peripheral, healthy cells. There emerges a need for more specific treatments, most notably to develop chemotherapy agents that target a unique feature of the cancer cells. Interestingly, 70% of BC cells upregulate estradiol-dependent pathway, a characteristic essential for rapid cell growth. Current BC drugs, such as Herceptin and Tamoxifen, have targeted this pathway to preferentially kill BC cells. However, most women relapse within 15 years due to drug-resistance. Thus, there is a need for new chemotherapeutic drugs. Our research group studies a novel estrogen-receptor targeting drug: Est-3-Melex. This compound has the estradiol molecule linked to a DNA alkylating agent, Melex. We hypothesize that Est-3-Melex enters the cancer cells via an interaction between the estradiol moiety and the estrogen receptor alpha (ER-alpha). ER-alpha then enters the nucleus and binds to Estrogen Response Elements on the DNA. This movement positions the Melex moiety on the DNA and allows the transfer of a methyl group to the N3 adenine on the DNA. In this project, we test the hypothesized mechanism of action of our compound. Since Est-3-Melex has a DNA methylation component (Melex) conjugated to estrogen, our hypothesis is that after the drug binds to the estrogen receptor in the cytosol, it translocates to the nucleus, specifically methylates the N3-region of adenine bases, eventually triggering cell death.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the 6th leading cause of death in the US. More than 44 million people worldwide, including 5.7 million Americans, are living with this neurodegenerative disease, and those numbers continue to climb. One of the features associated with AD is a disrupted sleep/wake cycle. Sleep is essential for many psychological and biological functions. A reported 35.3% of adults get less than the minimum 7 hours of sleep per night recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. Evidence suggests a bidirectional relationship between sleep loss and AD. Previous research indicates that disruptions in sleep often precede symptoms of AD such as cognitive impairments and memory loss. Chronic sleep loss has been associated with increased amyloid-beta and proinflammatory cytokines in the brain. Extended release of these proinflammatory cytokines can lead to increases in amyloid beta in the brain, which aggregates to form plaques that disrupt neuronal communication, a hallmark of AD. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the interaction between chronic sleep restriction, inflammation, and AD pathology in C57BL6/J mice. Our lab has previously demonstrated that mice administered seven consecutive days of LPS, a bacterial mimetic, exhibit increases in amyloid beta and proinflammatory cytokines in the brain, as well as cognitive deficits. Furthermore, research from our lab has shown that stress can exacerbate the effects of LPS. Healthy C57BL6/J adult mice were subjected to the multiple platform method of sleep disruption for 10 hours per day for 6 weeks. After receiving 7 consecutive days of either LPS or saline injections, animals were subjected to contextual fear conditioning to assess cognitive functioning, and hippocampal amyloid beta levels were quantified. While 7 days of LPS administration did not increase amyloid beta or cognitive deficits in contextual fear conditioning, chronic sleep restriction was associated with deficits in contextual fear acquisition and increased levels of hippocampal amyloid beta compared to control groups. Therefore, chronic sleep loss may have detrimental effects to cognitive function through increasing amyloid beta levels in the hippocampus. Given the large percentage of adults reporting getting less than the minimum recommended 7 hours of sleep per night, combined with the alarming climb in rates of AD and a growing body of work suggesting a link between these trends, investigating the detrimental effects of not getting enough sleep is an essential area of study.

Stress has been linked to altering acute and long-term inflammatory responses. Stress has been shown to activate inflammatory responses, specifically microglial activation in the brain. While acute inflammation is one of the first responses to fighting disease and infection, prolonged inflammation has been associated with neurogenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease. Stress at critical periods of development, known as early life stress (ELS) has been linked to chronic dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, depression and alterations to microglial cells. The goal of this study is to investigate the effect of stress in mice during early development through maternal stress during pregnancy and the impact on neuroinflammation in adult offspring. In utero, offspring are vulnerable to the harmful effects of pro-inflammatory cytokines due to stress experienced by adult mice, following an ELS timeline. Three conditions were utilized: (1) mice undergoing stress during the entire pre-natal period and with the early post-natal period, (2) mice undergoing stress during the early postnatal period, and (3) mice undergoing no additional stress at any point. For mice in the combination-stress condition, there was an immunosuppressive effect through downregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines. These data support existing publications that indicate an immunosuppressive role of prenatal stress, leaving the host less protected against chronic disease.

Males and females differ with regard to their immune response to a pathogen. Previous studies have observed males having reduced pathogen resistance. This suggests that they may be responding to pathogens differently. However, few studies have compared male and female immune responses following pathogen exposure. The purpose of this study was to examine sex-based differences in pathogen resistance and immune responses following exposure to a pathogen in adult fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas). To accomplish this, fish were bacterially infected with Yersinia ruckeri and the immune system’s ability to respond was monitored. Additionally, genes that are known to turn on during the immune response initiation were measured quantitatively providing insight into the molecular effect in minnows. At the whole organism level, male fish were less able to survive pathogen infection relative to female fish. At the tissue level, both male and female pathogen injected fish had decreased hematocrit percentages compared to the fish injected with a saline solution but did not differ from each other. At the molecular level, increased gene expression of interleukin 1β was seen in pathogen-injected males compared to pathogen-injected females and both sham-injected sexes indicating that pathogen-injected males mounted a larger inflammatory response at the molecular level. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the increased mortality observed among males earlier in the exposure to the pathogen may be due to the upregulated inflammatory response rather than the effects of the pathogen itself.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a very prevalent neurodegenerative disorder and is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by widely distributed amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, and is clinically associated with a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive functions. The major protein component of neuritic plaques is amyloid beta peptide. Several pieces of evidence have indicated that amyloid beta accumulates to form oligomeric states in the AD brain and cause the cognitive dysfunction commonly seen in patients. While a decrease in cognitive function is considered a hallmark of the disease, AD patients also exhibit decreased motor abilities and difficulties learning new motor tasks. Our lab’s previous investigations found voluntary running to decreased amyloid beta burden in C57/BL6 mice. The present experiment seeks to further explore the mechanism through which exercise induced amyloid beta clearance occurs. Previous studies have pointed to the function of the glymphatic system in the clearance of amyloid beta. The level and distribution of aquaporin 4 (AQP4) in the vascular endfeet of astrocytes is crucial to the normal function of the glymphatic system. Our experiment sought to determine a more detailed analysis of the role of AQP4 in the glymphatic clearance of amyloid beta. Using TGN-020, a selective AQP4 antagonist, we hope to further determine the importance of glymphatic clearance of amyloid beta in C57/BL6 mice through exercise. We hypothesize that mice receiving intraperitoneal TGN injections, thus blocking the function of AQP4, will experience decreased glymphatic clearance of amyloid beta. Understanding the process of amyoid beta clearance can aid in treatments for both the pathological and clinical affects associated with AD.

Bacillus anthracis is a Gram-positive bacterium that causes anthrax in humans. It is a significant microorganism in that many proteins important to virulence or pathogenesis are highly conserved in many other pathogenic bacteria. Our lab has previously identified the protein ClpX in Bacillus anthracis as metabolically significant in antibiotic resistance. Specifically, B. anthracis lacking the ClpX gene (ΔClpX) are significantly more susceptible to antibiotics that target the bacterial cell wall such as penicillin than the wild type. ClpX has multiple functions; primarily it interacts with ClpP to form a proteolytic complex that degrades dysfunctional or obsolete proteins. ClpX also has an independent chaperone function, moving proteins around the cell. This project has focused on determining if the pathway of decreased antibiotic resistance in mutant B. anthracis is dependent on ClpX interactions with ClpP, or if ClpX can function independently. To test this, a point mutation (I265E) was made in the ClpX gene at the site that has been previously identified as the site of interaction between ClpX and ClpP in Staphylococcus aureus. The ClpX genes in B. anthracis and S. aureus exhibit a high degree of conservation particularly in this region, and it is expected that this site will also be critical for ClpX and ClpP interaction in B. anthracis. The mutated ClpX gene (I265E) has been confirmed with sequencing and has been transformed as an inducible expression plasmit into the ΔClpX B. anthracis strain. The next step is to perfom growth assays in antibiotics such as penicillin to ascertain if the mutated expression vector can restore antibiotic resistance to ΔClpX.

The proper function of the Breast Cancer susceptibility gene 1 (BRCA1) and its subsequent protein in the human body is vital to healthy individuals. The malfunction of BRCA1 due to a mutation is associated with an increased risk of breast or ovarian cancer of up to 80%. The key to understanding whether a mutation in BRCA1 will lead to higher risk of cancer is its location. Many of its interactions with other proteins take place in the central region of BRCA1. Currently, little is known about how mutations located in this region affect BRCA1 structure and function. The central region is where BRCA1 interacts with another tumor suppressor called PALB2 to perform DNA repair. The central region site studied in this project can be activated as a response to DNA damage, influencing BRCA1 and PALB2 interaction to generate a damage repair response. We show how activation of BRCA1 affects its structure and function on the molecular level. The accomplish this we created three mutations in the central region that mimic activation of BRCA1 to identify possible significant changes in protein-protein interactions using biochemistry and structural biology techniques like Isothermal titration calorimetry and circular dichroism.