Honors Projects

Showing 461 - 470 of 662 Items

Examining the role of GRP and LIK1 in Wall Associated Kinase (WAK) perception of pectin in the plant cell wall

Date: 2017-01-01

Creator: Jack Ryan Mitchell

Access: Open access

Wall associated kinases (WAKs) are cell membrane bound receptor kinases that bind pectin and pectin fragments (OGs).The binding of WAKs to pectin sends a growth signal required for cell elongation and plant development. WAKs bind OGs with higher affinity than native pectin and instead activate a stress response. Glycine rich proteins (GRPs) are secreted cell wall proteins of unknown function. Seven GRPs with 65% sequence similarity are coded on a 90kb locus of Arabidopsis chromosome 2. GRP3 and WAK1 have been shown to bind in vitro, but single null mutations have no discernible phenotype, suggesting that the GRPs are redundant. Low recombination frequency has made multiple mutations difficult to achieve, but in this thesis, CRISPR/Cas9 technology was used to induce deletions of the GRP locus. The promoters pYAO and pICU2 drove Cas9 expression in transformed Arabidopsis plants. The presence of a deletion and Cas9 were detected by PCR. While somatic mutations were induced, there was no inheritance of the GRP deletion, indicating that pYAO and pICU2 do not drive Cas9 to induce deletions in progenitor cells. LIK1 is a CERK1 interacting kinase implicated in mediating response to various microbe associated molecular patterns (MAMP) such as chitin, flagellin, and peptidoglycans. LIK1 exhibits a drastic increase in phosphorylation in response to OG treatment, making it a candidate for a co-receptor to WAK. T-DNA insertions to the 5’UTR of LIK1 were used to examine the effect of a lik1 mutation on the OG induced stress response. lik1/lik1 mutant seedlings were grown in the presence and absence of OGs, and RNA was isolated. qPCR was used on cDNA to examine FADLOX expression, a reporter for the transcriptional response to OGs. The lik1/lik1 mutant caused a reduction in the OG induced transcriptional response. However, increased LIK1 expression was associated with the T-DNA insertion indicating that LIK1 inhibits the WAK stress response pathway. Understanding the roles of GRP and LIK1 in moderating WAK mediated pathogenic response in Arabidopsis will enable a better understanding of plant resistance to pathogen invasion in the greater plant kingdom.


The Ethiopian Student Movement and the Dilemma of Eritrean Sovereignty

Date: 2024-01-01

Creator: Liat G. Tesfazgi

Access: Open access

From the perspective of Ethiopian royalists, Pan-Africanists, Marxist internationalists, supports of union, and the broader international community, Eritrean nationalism revealed distressing fissures in many different arguments for preserving Ethiopian territorial unity– arguments not necessarily or explicitly problematic, but nevertheless in opposition to Eritrean demands for the right to national self-determination. For the Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM) specifically, Eritrean sovereignty demanded a reconfiguration of Pan-African unity that conflicted with Ethiopian exceptionalist historiography. Through an analysis of student politics at Haile Selassie University, from 1960-1974, this thesis seeks to complicate existing historiography on the ESM by examining the periodically divergent experiences of Eritrean student activists.


Miniature of Self-Censorsh** in the Classroom
Self-Censorsh** in the Classroom
This record is embargoed.
    • Embargo End Date: 2027-05-14

    Date: 2024-01-01

    Creator: Sarah Greenberg

    Access: Embargoed



      Neural compensation in response to salinity perturbation in the cardiac ganglion of the American lobster, Homarus americanus

      Date: 2024-01-01

      Creator: Josephine P. Tidmore

      Access: Open access

      Central pattern generator (CPG) networks produce the rhythmic motor patterns that underlie critical behaviors such as breathing, walking, and heartbeat. The fidelity of these neural circuits in response to fluctuations in environmental conditions is essential for organismal survival. The specific ion channel profile of a neuron dictates its electrophysiological phenotype and is under homeostatic control, as channel proteins are constantly turning over in the membrane in response to internal and external stimuli. Neuronal function depends on ion channels and biophysical processes that are sensitive to external variables such as temperature, pH, and salinity. Nonetheless, the nervous system of the American lobster (Homarus americanus) is robust to global perturbations in these variables. The cardiac ganglion (CG), the CPG that controls the rhythmic activation of the heart in the lobster, has been shown to maintain function across a relatively wide, ecologically-relevant range of saline concentrations in the short-term. This study investigates whether individual neurons of the CG sense and compensate for long-term changes in extracellular ion concentration by controlling their ion channel mRNA abundances. To do this, I bathed the isolated CG in either 0.75x, 1.5x, or 1x (physiological) saline concentrations for 24 h. I then dissected out individual CG motor neurons, the pacemaker neurons, and sections of axonal projections and used single-cell RT-qPCR to measure relative mRNA abundances of several species of ion channels in these cells. I found that the CG maintained stable output with 24 h exposure to altered saline concentrations (0.75x and 1.5x), and that this stability may indeed be enabled by changes in mRNA abundances and correlated channel relationships.


      Out of Time: Queer Resistance to Chrononormativity in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

      Date: 2025-01-01

      Creator: Elana Sheinkopf

      Access: Open access



      Tree Level Amplitudes for Yang-Mills and Complex Scalar Field Theory using Perturbiner Methods

      Date: 2025-01-01

      Creator: Abigail R. Chriss

      Access: Open access



      Miniature of Associations between Autistic Camouflaging, Autistic Burnout, Authenticity, and Mental Health Challenges: Exploring A Mediation Model
      Associations between Autistic Camouflaging, Autistic Burnout, Authenticity, and Mental Health Challenges: Exploring A Mediation Model
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          Date: 2025-01-01

          Creator: Yaerin H. Wallenberger

          Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



            Healthcare Practitioners as Educators: Perspectives on Preventing Sexual Violence

            Date: 2025-01-01

            Creator: Aidan N. Michelow

            Access: Open access



            Miniature of Group-theory constraints on color-ordered five-point amplitudes in SU(N) and SO(N) gauge-theories
            Group-theory constraints on color-ordered five-point amplitudes in SU(N) and SO(N) gauge-theories
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                Date: 2025-01-01

                Creator: Nathan Clay Bailey

                Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                  Miniature of The Physiological Effects of Acute Exposure to MPTP on the Mammalian Lumbar Central Pattern Generator Network
                  The Physiological Effects of Acute Exposure to MPTP on the Mammalian Lumbar Central Pattern Generator Network
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                      Date: 2025-01-01

                      Creator: Ephraim Kyenkyenhene Boamah

                      Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community