Browsing 2019 MU dissertations - Freely available online by Thesis Department "Biological sciences (MU)"
Now showing items 1-12 of 12
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Approaches for unveiling the kinetic mechanisms of voltage gated ion channels in neurons
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Ionic currents drive cellular function within all living cells to perform highly specific tasks. For excitable cells, such as muscle and neurons, voltage-gated ion channels have finely tuned kinetics that allow the ... -
Atypical localization of Eph-RTKs in childhood cancer rhabdomyosarcoma
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), the most common soft tissue tumor in children, is an aggressive cancer with a 5-year survival rate of 24% if it has metastasized. Current treatment options are limited to surgery, chemotherapy and ... -
Characterizing territoriality and the mechanisms that mediate it in female Anolis gundlachi lizards
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Territoriality is a suite of behaviors through which animals secure access to particular areas or resources. It is prevalent across animal groups and has the potential to exert substantial influence on fitness by mediating ... -
Development of an amenable system for site-specific addition to a maize chromosome
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Currently, transgenic maize is produced by random integration of a transgenes into the plant. This works for single genes, but not as well for multiple traits. Identifying plants that contain several transgenes becomes a ... -
Elucidation of the genetic control of carbohydrate partitioning in Zea mays
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Carbohydrate partitioning, the process of transporting carbohydrates from sites of synthesis in hotosynthetic tissue to developing sink tissues, is crucial for the growth, development, and yield in plants and crops. ... -
Establishing a foundation for large DNA transfer to artificial minichromosomes and B insert platforms in maize
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)In plants, conventional genetic engineering methods limit the number of available traits that could potentially improve the quality of agriculture. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and biolistic bombardment are tools ... -
Exploring the diverse functions of peptidoglycan hydrolases in the plant pathogen, Agrobacterium tumefaciens
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)The plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens displays an atypical form of unipolar elongation, followed by incipient pole synthesis during cell division and cell separation. Currently, how polar growing bacteria modulate ... -
From unique killers to a jumbo genome - isolation and characterization of phages that infect the plant pathogen, Agrobacterium tumefaciens
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Bacteriophages and their lytic peptides can protect plants from phytopathogens such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens. To better understand mechanisms of phagemediated host killing, we isolated and characterized five lytic ... -
Identification, characterization and use of novel thermogenetic tools in drosophilia melanogaster
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Extrinsic control of neural activity is necessary to decipher the neural mechanisms underlying behavior. Molecular tools that employ light (optogenetics) or temperature (thermogenetics) are primarily used for extrinsic ... -
Mechanisms of polar growth in the alphaproteobacterial order rhizobiales
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)All bacteria elongate and divide to faithfully reproduce their cell shape. Understanding the mechanisms that drive bacterial morphology requires an intimate knowledge of how the cell wall is synthesized. During cell ... -
The molecular underpinnings of neuronal cell identity in the stomatogastric ganglion of cancer borealis
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)Throughout the life of an organism, the nervous system must be able to balance changing in response to environmental stimuli with the need to produce reliable, repeatable activity patterns to create stereotyped behaviors. ... -
Tales of an 'invisible' life stage : survival and physiology among terrestrial juvenile ambystomatid salamanders
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)The vital rates (e.g., survival, growth, and reproduction) of distinct life stages within a species are known to influence the growth and persistence of populations. As such, studies describing stage-specific vital rates, ...