Writing in Biology

Another therapy approach described to target the survival function of the metastatic niche are gap junction inhibitors. In the brain metastatic niche, astrocytes were shown to interact with disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) through gap junctions in order to further their survival through the second messenger cGAMP and the activation of the STING pathway as well as interferon-alpha and tumor necrosis factor (Chen et al. 2016). Therefore, by inhibiting these gap junctions, cancerous cells are not able to utilize surrounding cells to further their survival. Some of these gap junction inhibitors include the FDA-approved tonaberset and meclofenamate. This therapy is useful in halting cell survival but is systemic as many cells throughout the body interact through gap junctions, including those that are healthy. Instead, these gap junction inhibitors may be better utilized in synergy with a more specific treatment to target only cancerous cells.

It is important to understand how roots respond to temperature because roots are important in the regulation of plant adaptation in high temperatures. High temperatures are often limiting to the growth and productivity of plant species. There has not been a lot of research done in terms of root growth/survival mechanisms at high temperatures and therefore how they function under these stressful conditions is not widely understood. They decided to choose the two species because they are both Agrostis species however, A. scabra can withstand high heats whereas A. stolonifera cannot. A. scabra is a C3 plant which has been growing in very high temperatures in Yellowstone National Park. Since it is able to grow in these high heats, scientists believe that there are mechanisms in the root survival of this species that are not understood.

Progesterone is a hormone that is present in males and females, specifically fathers and mothers. It is a hormone that affects the parental instincts. When progesterone inhibitors were introduced to mice, it was found that they act less aggressively towards its young. Whereas the control showed the male mice being aggressive to its young, tearing up the litter and not being around for the young. In mothers or females, it affects the rate of reproduction and maternal behavior. It allows the female to go through changes that supports young. Such as production of milk.

Biosafety level 4 labs have absolutely insane filtration systems. Any air coming into the facility is filtered. Any air leaving the facility is filtered a minimum of two times to ensure no pathogen is still in the air that is leaving. If a pathogen is still in the air when it exits the facility that could prove catastrophic for the surrounding area and due to the nature of the pathogens would prove to be potentially deadly for regions well beyond the point of release. The filters that air used to filter any air flow in and out of the facilities are high efficiency particle air filters. These filters are annually updated to ensure that they are still performing the necessary task of filtering out all pathogens in the air. Daily the filter status must be checked to ensure operations may continue within the facility. If any filtration systems are compromised then the laboratory must immediately halt all activity. An additional measure to ensure no pathogens escape via the exhaust of the facility is that the facility is kept in negative pressure. This means that air flow is encourage to stay within the lab and not outside of it.

Redox reactions are chemical reactions in which the oxidation states of atoms are changed. These reactions involve both reduction and oxidation processes. Oxidation processes lose electrons with the use of a reducing agent. Reduction processess gain electrons with the use of an oxidizing agent. For every oxidation reaction there must be a reduction reaction as no free electrons remain in a cell. This energy transfer and the use of these electrons is determined by a reduction potential, meaning the reactions affinity for electrons or how likely it will be reduced. This energy transwer occurs between molecules with lower affinity to higher affinity, allowing for the release of energy resulting in the reaction being favorable. Spontaneous redox reactions have a positive E value and these redox reactions are essential for coupling between biochemical pathways. 

Although the FGENESH predicted 15 exons, the missing portion that was output by Phytozome suggests that there may be 16 exons. The Nucleotide BLAST matches to only eukaryotic green plants suggests that this gene plays a role in plant development that is not present in animals. Based on the UniProt description of the gene as involved in the cell membrane, the gene seems to be involved in the membrane and cell wall, which is only present in plants. This was also supported by the fact that only the kinase domain was conserved in species outside of plants. The whole of almost whole protein was only found in plants.

I hypothesize that the unknown gene codes for a transmembrane protein spanning the plasma membrane or cell wall of B. distachyon cells. The extracellular leucine-rich repeats are used to communicate with surrounding cells, activating the intracellular kinase domain to bind ATP and phosphorylate a protein

Whole mount in-situ hybridization starts off with two independent procedures that eventually converge: probe generation and preparation of embryos. The entire procedure becomes one during the hybridization step, with I will describe in greater detail.

Probe generation will allow me to synthesis the antisense RNA probes that will bind the alpha-4 gene and help visualize gene expression. The step begins with obtaining the cDNA of the alpha-4 gene. Since the cDNA has been obtained by reverse transcription of mature alpha-4 mRNA, the issue of having introns within the sequence is circumvented. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of the cDNA sequence will allow me to amplify the sequence and introduce the RNA polymerase promoter. After PCR, I will purify the resultant sequences before performing an in-vitro transcription to synthesize the antisense RNA probe. Once I’ve made the RNA probes, all further steps will be performed after the application of RNAse-away on all surfaces to avoid probe degradation; RNAse degrades RNA molecules. I will also use RNAse-free water and filter tips as further precautionary measures. Observing the necessary precautions, I will label the RNA probes with digoxigenin uridine-5’-triphosphate, which will enable visualization of alpha-4 gene expression alter on.

We next narrowed our literature search for gene function.  A search of Bradi1g25180 did not yield any results, so we switched our focus to homologous proteins.  Bradi1g25180 was searched on www.arabidopsis.org in order to find homologous proteins.  There were twenty homologs that came up, but searches for them yielded no papers about function.  Notable homologs that yielded no results about function include the following: two arabidopsis thaliana genes (AT4g21390 and AT1g61610), two Glycine max genes (GLYMA13g32242 and GLYMA15g07090), one Oryza sativa gene (OSJNBB0041B22), and one Sorghum bicolor gene (SB02G035940).  

The B120 gene in Arabidopsis thaliana is AT4g21390, which is also known as T6K22.120 according to Uniprot.  This gene is one of three genes hypothesized to potentially be the Arabidopsis thaliana counterpart to the S-locus receptor kinase (SRK) when compared to SRK in Arabidopsis lyrata (Kusaba et al. 2001).  SRK is the female S-locus transmembrane protein expressed in the stigma. If it binds to the SRC protein expressed on pollen, the plant undergoes the self-incompatibility response and prevents seed formation.  

    How would you destroy society as efficiently as possible if you were set on destroying modern society? What if you had the power to shut down Amazon, Apple, and Google--as if they were to fall off the face of the planet tomorrow. Say the databases for all three of these major companies were completely wiped, what would happen? Well for starters, Whole Foods, Ring, Zappos, PillPack, Twitch, and Audible, as well as other companies bought by Amazon would all crash and cease to exist. This would mean some of the largest online retailers, as well as the leading streaming platform will all cease to work. A large portion of the economy will suddenly just come to a halt, and the flow of money would completely flip. Then there’s Google, which own Youtube, Google Maps, Android, and more. With just these minor companies dying out, suddenly a lot of livelihoods built around social media, as well as most GPS navigation systems will stop working. Android phones will stop working, and now everyone with an Android has a lot of their connections cut off immediately. Finally there’s Apple, where suddenly if all their services stop working, then all their phones, laptops, desktops, watches, all would stop working. The amount of people who own either an Android or Apple phone is significant, especially in the U.S. where 86% of cell phone users have either an Android or an Apple phone.

Electrocardiograms measure the electrical impulse of the heart. There are 5 different intervals: p, q,r,s, and t. The p wave is a measure of the atrial depolarization. Q, R, and S are thought of as the QRS complex, which measures ventricular depolarization and also atrial repolarization. Becasue ventrical depolarization is more powerful, the atrial repolarization cannot be seen easily. The t wave represents ventrical repolarization. To calculate heart rate from an ECG, you divide 1,5000 by the number of boxes inbetween the two R intervals. A normal heart rate is between 60 and 100 bpm. When the heart rate is below 60 it is called bradycardia, and when the heart rate is above 100 it is called trachycardia. There are many abnormalities that cause an ECG to appear funky. An AV blockage can cause the ECG to appear like the p wave is moving around or like it is missing an QRS complex. Right bundle branch blockage (RBBB) can make the R intervals appear to be next to each other. Left bundle branch blockage (LBBB) can cause the S wave to appear like abnormal. Preventricular contraction (PVC) can cause random abnormalities through out the entire ECG. Left ventricular hypertension can cause the S segment to appear extremely long. Right ventricular hypertension can cause the R segment to be extremely elongated.