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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,513 records · Page 84
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2011

Proline-Rich Polypeptide 1 and G X -NH 2 : Molecular and Genetic Mechanisms of Hematopoiesis Regulation

LifeTime™ is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on that focuses on "fast tracked" small molecules designed to treat and prevent the recurrence of life-threatening chronic infectious and malignant diseases. It is a company focused on the clinical development and commercialization of promising new compounds for human therapeutics. Its lead compound is Beta LT™, an anti-cancer immune stimulant, which is currently in Phase I/II trials in Canada and waiting for Phase I/II start-up in America. While current approaches generally cause remissions, the few cells (or viruses) not killed by current therapy generally multiply, ultimately killing the person. To prevent this, they specialize in developing novel, to date completely non-toxic, long-term therapeutic products.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Molecular Genetic Traits Influencing Maize Endosperm Development and Value

Development of the endosperm in cereal grasses entails different phases characterized by cell division, endoreduplication, accumulation of storage metabolites and cell death, which need to be carried out in an orderly fashion. While correct regulation of the cell cycle plays an essential role in endosperm development, the key regulatory factors and how the cell cycle interfaces with other pathways in this developmental context are largely unknown. We investigated the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)-retinoblastoma pathway and how it controls the cell cycle and coordinates it with other processes during maize endosperm development. Retinoblastoma-related (RBR) proteins may be inactivated through CDK-mediated phosphorylation, but the identity of the responsible kinase in maize is unknown. We have previously shown that down-regulation of CDKA;1 severely inhibits the endoreduplication cell cycle and suggested that CDK may be an up-stream regulator of the retinoblastoma pathway. We discovered two types of maize RBR genes, RBR1 and RBR3, which differ in terms of structure, regulation and function. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that these genes may be distinctive features of the Poaceae. We found that RBR3 plays a positive rather than a negative role in DNA replication, cell transformation, and the expression of the minichromosome maintenance (MCM)2-7 family of DNA replication factors. These features are a paradigm shift in RBR gene function and appear to be unique within the RBR gene family. They suggest the existence in maize and related cereal crops of specific RBR/E2F-dependent pathways impinging on the cell cycle and development. RBR1 was down-regulated in transgenic endosperm using RNAi approaches. This resulted in the de-repression of a number of down-stream E2F targets, including RBR3, the MCM2-7 gene family, DNA methyltransferase (MET)1, CDKB;1, and the recently identified RBR4 gene. It also increased endosperm ploidy levels, stimulated the production of a larger number of cells, reduced the average cell size, and promoted programmed cell death. To test whether CDKA;1 inhibits RBR1 (through phosphorylation) in the pathway that leads to DNA synthesis and endoreduplication, the two CDKA;1 and RBR1 down-regulated mutants were crossed and their progeny analyzed. Our results indicate that CDKA;1 controls endoreduplication through an RBR1-dependent pathway. However, the ability of RBR1 to repress gene expression programs is independent from CDKA1, suggesting the presence of two differently regulated RBR1 activities in developing endosperm. One type of RBR1 activity controls E2F-dependent gene expression and is largely independent from CDKA;1, while another suppresses endoreduplication and can be inhibited by CDKA;1. In addition, RBR1 is part of a regulatory feedback loop that impinges on CDK activity. Together, these results indicate that the CDKA;1-RBR1 pathway integrates and controls different processes associated with endosperm development. Genome-wide analyses of the transcriptome, metabolome, and epigenetic mechanisms to understand how the cell cycle is coordinated with other pathways at a systems biology level are currently underway.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Genetic dissection of bioenerrgy traits in sorghum

Specific Objectives: 1. To identify the gene(s) underlying a major QTL for stem sugar concentration located on chromosome 3. 2. To identify QTL for stem juice volume and stalk sugar concentration and to identify the underlying genes. 3. To classify 60 novel sorghum bmr mutants from the USDA TILLING population in allelic groups based on cell wall chemistry and allelism tests. 4. To select representative bmr mutants from each allelic group and selected NIR spectral mutants for their potential value as feedstock for ethanol production. 5. To clone and characterize those Bmr genes that represent loci other than Bmr12 and Bmr6 using a mapping and a candidate gene approach.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

Physiology and Genetics of Biogenic Methane-Production from Acetate

Biomass conversion catalyzed by methanogenic consortia is a widely available, renewable resource for both energy production and waste treatment. The efficiency of this process is directly dependent upon the interaction of three metabolically distinct groups of microorganisms; the fermentative and acetogenic Bacteria and the methanogenic Archaea. One of the rate limiting steps in the degradation of soluble organic matter is the dismutation of acetate, a predominant intermediate in the process, which accounts for 70 % or more of the methane produced by the methanogens. Acetate utilization is controlled by regulation of expression of carbon monoxide dehydrogensase (COdh), which catalyzes the dismutation of acetate. However, physiological and molecular factors that control differential substrate utilization have not been identified in these Archaea. Our laboratory has identified sequence elements near the promoter of the gene (cdh) encoding for COdh and we have confirmed that these sequences have a role in the in vivo expression of cdh. The current proposal focuses on identifying the regulatory components that interact with DNA and RNA elements, and identifying the mechanisms used to control cdh expression.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

Heritable Genetic Changes in Cells Recovered from Irradiated 3D Tissue Contracts (Final report)

Combining contemporary cytogenetic methods with DNA CGH microarray technology and chromosome flow-sorting increases substantially the ability to resolve exchange breakpoints associated with interstitial deletions and translocations, allowing the consequences of radiation damage to be directly measured at low doses, while also providing valuable insights into molecular mechanisms of misrepair processes that, in turn, identify appropriate biophysical models of risk at low doses. The aims of this work apply to cells recovered from 3D tissue constructs of human skin and, for the purpose of comparison, the same cells irradiated in traditional 2D cultures. These aims are: to analyze by multi-flour fluorescence in situ hybridization (mFISH) the chromosomes in clonal descendents of individual human fibroblasts that were previously irradiated; to examine irradiated clones from Aim 1 for submicroscopic deletions by subjecting their DNA to comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) microarray analysis; and to flow-sort aberrant chromosomes from clones containing stable radiation-induced translocations and map the breakpoints to within an average resolution of 100 kb using the technique of 'array painting'.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗
DOE OSTI2013

Corn Storage Protein - A Molecular Genetic Model

Corn is the highest yielding crop on earth and probably the most valuable agricultural product of the United States. Because it converts sun energy through photosynthesis into starch and proteins, we addressed energy savings by focusing on protein quality. People and animals require essential amino acids derived from the digestion of proteins. If proteins are relatively low in certain essential amino acids, the crop becomes nutritionally defective and has to be supplemented. Such deficiency affects meat and fish production and countries where corn is a staple. Because corn seed proteins have relatively low levels of lysine and methionine, a diet has to be supplemented with soybeans for the missing lysine and with chemically synthesized methionine. We therefore have studied genes expressed during maize seed development and their chromosomal organization. A critical technical requirement for the understanding of the molecular structure of genes and their positional information was DNA sequencing. Because of the length of sequences, DNA sequencing methods themselves were insufficient for this type of analysis. We therefore developed the so-called “DNA shotgun sequencing” strategy, where overlapping DNA fragments were sequenced in parallel and used to reconstruct large DNA molecules via overlaps. Our publications became the most frequently cited ones during the decade of 1981-1990 and former Associate Director of Science for the Office of Basic Energy Sciences Patricia M. Dehmer presented our work as one of the great successes of this program. A major component of the sequencing strategy was the development of bacterial strains and vectors, which were also used to develop the first biotechnology crops. These crops possessed new traits thanks to the expression of foreign genes in plants. To enable such expression, chimeric genes had to be constructed using our materials and methods by the industry. Because we made our materials and methods freely available to academia and industry, progress in plant research and new crop development could accelerate and benefit the public.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

The Adaptive Response, Genetic Haplo-Insufficiency and Genomic Instability

The linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis is the driving force in the establishment of radiation protection standards. However, the scientific basis for linearity has been brought into question, particularly due to the concerns about induced radiation resistance as it pertains to oxidative stress. Specifically, we investigated the observation that tumor hypoxia is associated with malignant progression, increased metastases, chemo- and radioresistance and poor prognosis. Experiments were conducted with non-malignant 3T3/NIH cells and normal human lung fibroblasts (NHLF) that were subjected to γ-irradiation under the levels of oxygen resembling those in growing tumors, and related our data to the concentrations of dissolved oxygen (DO), which is a better indicator of the amounts of residual oxygen inside the cells cultured in the hypoxic or anoxic atmosphere. We found that at DO levels about 0.5 mg/L cells subjected to both short-term (17 hours) and prolonged (48-72 hours) hypoxia continued to proliferate, and that apoptotic events were decreased at the early hours of hypoxic treatment. We showed that the short-term hypoxia up-regulated p53-binding protein 1 (53BP1) and resulted in facilitated 53BP1 nuclear foci formation and disappearance, thus indicating the higher efficiency of DNA double strand breaks repair processes. The latter was confirmed by the lower micronuclei incidence in irradiated hypoxic cells.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Molecular and Genetic Bases of Sodium and Potassium Transport and Distribution in Plants

Environmental stresses impair renewable bioenergy capture and storage in plants and interfere with photosynthetic activity. Sodium (Na + ) is toxic to most plants at high concentrations. The long-term goal of this research project is to understand the biophysical functions of individual Na + and K + transporter classes and individual genes in affecting photosynthesis in plants. In the recently ended grant the molecular regulation mechanisms and functions by which plants protect themselves from salinity-induced abiotic stress were characterized.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗