This study examined central mechanisms of persistent pain using an autoradiographic technique to localize phosphoinositide hydrolysis (PI) in the rat spinal cord dorsal horn. The lateral half of laminae I-II showed the highest levels of baseline PI turnover and carbachol-stimulated PI turnover in normal animals as well as after inflammation. Inflammation resulted in increased baseline PI turnover in this region of the ipsilateral (76%) and contralateral (65%) dorsal horns. Carbachol increased PI turnover in this region in normal rats (55%) and following inflammation (ipsilateral: 46%, contralateral: 45%). The absolute magnitudes of these increases were 1.85, 2.71, and 2.51 nCi/mg, respectively. The results of this study demonstrate the involvement of PI turnover in neural mechanisms of persistent pain, and provide evidence for the involvement of cholinergic systems in this process. Because spinal cholinergic systems have been reported to be anti-nociceptive, the present results appear to reflect an upregulation of anti-nociceptive activity in response to inflammation. Thus, the spinal cholinergic system may be a regulatory site within the anti-nociceptive pathway, and may provide an attractive target for the development of new therapeutic agents.

The City of Denton Landfill, Permit #1590A, utilizes “Dry-Tomb” techniques for disposal and promotion of municipal solid waste stabilization, as described by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) prohibition in 40 CFR. Bioreactor research suggests re-circulating leachate increases biodegradation rates and reduces long-term monitoring from fifty years to less than ten years. Current procedures that are followed at Denton's landfill, literature review and the use of the Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance (HELP) model, suggest that a bioreactor landfill cell is worthy of further research. Re-circulating leachate and augmenting it with additional liquid will increase biodegradation and the need to design and build a landfill gas collection system to capture methane for energy recovery uses.

Putative cotton cDNA clones and cognate genomic clones for a palmitoyl-acyl carrier protein (ACP) thioesterase (PATE) and an osmotin-like pathogenesis-related 5 (PR5) protein have been isolated and characterized. PATE is a class B fatty acid thioesterase with specificity for saturated long-chain fatty acids such as palmitate, and is implicated as a key enzyme to be targeted for regulation of fatty acid synthesis in order to alter cotton seed oil profiles. A nearly full-length 1.7-kb cDNA clone was isolated using a hybridization probe derived from an Arabidopsis PATE cDNA clone designated TE 3-2. A 17-kb genomic segment encompassing the PATE gene was also isolated, which has six exons and five introns with high sequence identity with other FatB cDNA/gene sequences. The deduced PATE preprotein amino acid sequence of 413 residues has putative signal sequences for targeting to the chloroplast stroma. PR5 proteins called osmotins are made in response to fungal pathogen stress or osmotic stress (water deprivation or salt exposure). Osmotins may actually form pores in fungal membranes, leading to osmotic rupture and destruction of the fungal cells. A cotton osmotin-like PR5 cDNA insert of 1,052 base-pairs was isolated and shown to encode a preprotein of 242 amino acids and is …

Development of a college level freshman biology course was undertaken in response to government reports that American students have fallen behind students of other countries in the area of the sciences. Teaching strategies were investigated to accomplish two objectives, to define essential academic material to include in the course and to investigate teaching techniques that would increase deep processing of the information. An active process that consisted of applying the cognitive information to solving problems or developing answers to questions was defined as critical thinking. Critical thinking was incorporated into the course by the use of case studies.

Roseate spoonbills are colonial nesting birds with breeding grounds extending from the United States Gulf coast to the pampas of Argentina. The U.S. population suffered a severe bottleneck from 1890 to 1920. The population's recovery was slow and partially credited to migrations from Mexican rookeries, but a gene pool reduction would be expected. Five polymorphic Spoonbill autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci [three (GAT)n, one (AAAG)n and one (GT)n] and one Z/W-linked microsatellite exhibiting sex-specific dimorphism were isolated and characterized. The Z/W-linked STR locus accurately confirmed the sex of each bird. Allelic profiles for 51 spoonbills obtained from Dallas (Texas), Fort Worth (Texas) and Sedgwick County (Kansas) zoos revealed a non-continuous distribution of allele frequencies, consistent with the effects of a population bottleneck. Allelic frequencies also differed significantly between the isolated zoo populations. Although extra-pair copulations were suspected and difficult to document, zoos commonly used observational studies of mating pairs to determine familial relationships among adults and offspring. STR parentage analysis of recorded family relationships excluded one or both parents in 10/25 cases studied and it was further possible to identify alternative likely parents in each case. Mistaken familial relationships quickly lead to the loss of genetic variability in captive …

Macroinvertebrate communities inhabiting an exotic, Myriophyllum spicatum, and a native, Heteranthera dubia macrophyte were studied from March 1999 to June 2000 in experimental ponds. Although macrophyte architecture explained some variation in macroinvertebrate abundance between the two macrophytes, most variation was explained by the sampling months. Total number of macroinvertebrates was found to be positively correlated with epiphyton biomass which differed significantly between the two plant types and among sampling months. Taxa richness did not vary between the two plant types. Chironomid larvae were the most abundant organisms and dominated by Apedilum elachistus on both plant communities. Annual production of five chironomid species was estimated by the size-frequency method. Production estimates (P) in g dry wt m-2 yr-1 of plant surface area for the predator Tanypodinae larvae were: Larsia decolarata, P= 0.77 and 0.67, Labrundinia virescens, P= 0.59 and 0.35 on M. spicatum and H. dubia, respectively. Larvae of Cricotopus sylvestris and Psectrocladius vernalis were collected from M. spicatum from March to mid-June. Production of C. sylvestris was found to be 0.46 g dry wt m-2, whereas it was 0.07 g dry wt m-2 for P. vernalis for this period. Apedilum elachistus exhibited the highest productivity: 9.9 g dry wt m-2 …

Like its enteric counterpart, aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase) from Pseudomonas putida is a dodecamer of two different polypeptides. Unlike the enterics, the Pseudomonas ATCase lacks regulatory polypeptides but employs instead inactive dihydroorotases for an active dodecamer. Previous work showed that PyrB contains not only the active site but also the effector binding sites for ATP, UTP and CTP at its N-terminus. In this work, 11 amino acids were deleted from the N-terminus of PyrB and the ATCase with the truncated protein was expressed in E. coli pyrB- and purified. The wild type enzyme was similarly treated. Velocity-substrate plots without effectors gave Michaelis-Menten kinetics in all cases. Deleting 11 amino acids did not affect dodecameric assembly but altered effector responses. When carbamoylphosphate was varied, the mutant enzyme was inhibited by UTP while the wild type enzyme was activated 2-fold. When the aspartate was varied, CTP had no effect on the mutant enzyme but strongly inhibited the wild type enzyme.

This research is designed to test how sublethal exposure to copper affects tadpole predator-escape behavior and how quickly tadpoles recover. After exposure, tadpoles were separated. Escape behavior was recorded for two-thirds of exposed tadpoles while one-third of the exposed population was measured weekly to determine growth and recovery. Control tadpoles were consumed within 15 minutes whereas those exposed to higher concentrations were consumed at a slower rate, which does not support the hypotheses. Although the rate of predation was lower, tadpoles exposed to higher Cu concentrations were on average, 1.47 cm in total body length. Those exposed to 0.93 mg/L averaged 0.86 cm. After being placed into clean water, treatment tadpoles recovered after 20 days.

A life history and productivity study of Enallagma civile was conducted in a playa that was located in the southern High Plains of Texas. Other odonates were also studies to identify their contributions to the habitat.

An anti-G"11 antibody was used to label neuronal cilia throughout the rat central nervous system. Immunoreactive cilia were observed in every examined region of the rat CNS, but not in monkey or mouse tissue. Antibodies to G"q and G"q/11 failed to label cilia. Immunoreactive cilia were observed as early as postnatal day 0 in spinal tissue, and postnatal day 3 in hypothalamic tissue. There was a statistically significant negative correlation between a region's mean cilium length and that region's distance to the nearest ventricle; regions nearest ventricles were those with the longest cilia. This correlation suggests neuronal cilia may function as chemosensors, detecting substances as they move out from the cerebrospinal fluid and into the extracellular space of the brain.

A cotton PATE cDNA clone has a 1.7-kb insert with an coding region for 410 amino acids, lacking codons for the three N-terminal amino acids. The predicted amino acid sequence of the PATE preprotein has a characteristic stromal-targeting domain and a 63% identity to the Arabidopsis FatB1 thioesterase sequence. A cotton genomic clone containing a 17.4-kb DNA segment was found to encompass a palmitoyl-ACP thioesterase (FatB1) gene. The gene spans 3.6 kb with six exons and five introns. The six exons are identical in nucleotide sequence to the open reading frame of the corresponding cDNA, and would encode a preprotein of 413 amino acids. The preprotein is identified as a FatB thioesterase from its deduced amino acid sequence similarity to those of other FatB thioesterase preproteins. A 5'-flanking region of 914 bp was sequenced, with the potential promoter/enhancer elements including basic helix-loop-helix elements (E box). Alkaline blot hybridization of cotton genomic DNA suggests the presence at least two FatB1 thioesterase genes in cotton. Four plasmid constructs for both constitutive and seed-specific anti-sense RNA suppression and gene-transgene co- suppression of PATE gene expression were successfully generated. Two overlapping cotton genomic clones were found to encompass a Δ-12 fatty acid desaturase (FAD2-3) …