Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-131) Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-48). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Cardiac remodeling involves changes in heart shape, size, structure, and function after injury to the myocardium. The proinflammatory adaptor protein myeloid differentiation protein 88 (MyD88) contributes to cardiac remodeling. To investigate whether excessive MyD88 levels initiate spontaneous cardiac remodeling at the whole-organism level, we generated a transgenic MyD88 mouse model with a cardiac-specific promoter. MyD88 mice (male, 20–30 g, n=~80) were born at the expected Mendelian ratio and demonstrated similar morphology of the heart and cardiomyocytes with that of wild-type controls. Although heart weight was unaffected, cardiac contractility of MyD88 hearts was mildly reduced, as shown by echocardiographic examination, compared with wild-type controls. Moreover, the cardiac dysfunction phenotype was associated with elevation of ANF and BNP expression. Collectively, our data provide novel evidence of the critical role of balanced MyD88 signaling in maintaining physiological function in the adult heart.

Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are derived from the developing tilapia brain was established in our lab. There are 9 transcripts were identified as thermosensitive/Neural development-related gene. The effects of different temperatures on the ontogenetic expression of these thermosensitive/Neural development-related gene during the critical period of brain sexual differentiation were investigated in the present study. The ontogenetic expression of inhibitor of DNA binding/differentiation protein 2 (Id2), thermosensitive/Neural development-related gene, were enhanced by both lower (20¢J) and higher (32¢J) temperatures before 10 days post-hatching. In this study, bioinformatics were searched for Id2, which is a gene with 738 bp of patial cDNA sequence, open reading frame (ORF) is 411bp, and deduced 137 amino acids of protein sequence. The protein of Id2 was expressed in a prokaryotic system, BL21 (Escherichia coli) and purified with Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. Also, the ORF of Id2 was cloned into pEGFP vector, and plasmid (pEGFP-Id2) was transfected into the eukaryotic system, mouse neuroblastoma cell (Neuro-2a cell). The distribution of Id2 expressed in the Neuro-2a cell was identified by fluorescence microscopy.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 42 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 3, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.