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- Creator:
- Srodawa, Kristy, Cerda, Peter A, Davis Rabosky, Alison R, and Crowe-Riddell, Jenna M
- Description:
- Snake venom research has historically focused on front-fanged species (Viperidae and Elapidae), limiting our knowledge of venom evolution in rear-fanged snakes across their ecologically-diverse phylogeny. Three finger toxins (3FTxs) are a known neurotoxic component in the venoms of some rear-fanged snakes (Colubrinae, Colubridae), but it is unclear how prevalent 3FTxs are both in expression within venom glands and more broadly among colubrine species. Here, we used a transcriptomic approach to characterize the venom expression profiles of four species of colubrine snakes from Neotropics that were dominated by 3FTx expression (in the genera Chironius, Oxybelis, Rhinobothryum, and Spilotes) and reconstructed the gene trees of 3FTxs. Overall, our results highlight the importance of exploring the venoms of understudied species in reconstructing the full evolutionary history of toxins across the tree of life.
- Keyword:
- snake venom, neurotoxin, molecular evolution, gene families, and opisthoglyphous
- Citation to related publication:
- Srodawa, K., Cerda, P.A., Davis Rabosky, A.R., Crowe-Riddell, J.M. Evolution of Three Finger Toxin Genes in Neotropical Colubrine Snakes (Colubridae). Toxins 2023, 15(9), 523; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins15090523
- Discipline:
- Science
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- Creator:
- Zhang, Yingxiao MI
- Description:
- We developed a new model framework based on WRF-Chem, simulating primary biological aerosol particle emissions and their interaction with clouds. We have designed different sensitivity tests to evaluate the effects of pollen and sub-pollen particles (SPPs), respectively. Our results show that SPPs have a larger effect on cloud microphysics and precipitation than whole pollen grains.
- Keyword:
- Aerosol-cloud interactions, Primary biological aerosol particles, Ice nucleating particles, Microphyscis scheme, and Pollen
- Discipline:
- Science
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- Creator:
- Andres Gonzalez and Maria Natalia Umaña
- Description:
- This dataset is part of a research project that aims to study how functional traits shape species ecological strategies at the seedling stage in four tropical forests in Colombia. Nine traits related to storage (i.e., axial, radial and total parenchyma fractions), mechanics (i.e., wood density, fiber fractions and wall thickness) and hydraulics (i.e., vessel lumen diameter, vessel fractions, and pit size) were measured.
- Keyword:
- seedlings, wood anatomy, and tropical dry forests
- Discipline:
- Science
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- Creator:
- Lori, Jody R., Moyer, Cheryl, Lockhart, Nancy, Zielinski, Ruth E., Kukula, Vida, Apetorgbor, Veronica, Awini, Elizabeth, Badu-Gyan, Georgina, and Williams, John
- Description:
- GRAND is a five-year, cluster randomized controlled trial. The study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, [ID#: NCT04033003] and is a collaboration between University of Michigan in the United States and the Dodowa Health Research Center in Ghana. , The study setting for GRAND is four districts (Akwapim North, Yilo Krobo, Nsawam-Adoagyiri, and Lower Manya Krobo) within the Eastern Region of Ghana. Health facilities were selected based the number ANC registrants per month and average gestational age of women at registration in each facility., and Facilities were then matched based on facility type, district, and number of monthly ANC registrants. A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted in 14 facilities in four districts of the Eastern Region of Ghana. Health facilities were randomized using a matched pairs design; each pair was similar in the number of deliveries and average gestational age of the women at enrollment in antenatal care. The locations of the facilities were far enough apart to avoid cross-group contamination. In each pair of facilities, one was randomly assigned to the intervention (G-ANC) and the other to the control (I-ANC). Recruitment began July 2019 and ended when enrollment targets were met. Data collection ended July 2023 when data collection was complete.
- Keyword:
- Antenatal care, Ghana, and Maternal health
- Citation to related publication:
- Lori, J., Kukula, V., Liu, L. et al. Improving health literacy through group antenatal care: results from a cluster randomized controlled trial in Ghana. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 24, 37 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-023-06224-x
- Discipline:
- International Studies and Health Sciences
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- Creator:
- Sealey, Briana A., Larson, Joanna G., Westeen, Erin P., Sánchez-Paredes, Ciara M., Moore, Talia Y., and Davis Rabosky, Alison R.
- Description:
- In this study, we experimentally tested for the effects of four simulated predator cues on defensive displays in two species of South American calico snakes (genus Oxyrhopus). We found that juvenile snakes were both more likely to respond and to respond more strongly than adults and that displays were most common in response to tactile stimuli than to other treatments. However, we also found broad similarity across both simulated predator treatments and species in the components used in each snake’s defensive display, suggesting a high degree of stereotyping. This research suggests an important role for both ontogeny and intensity of predation risk in structuring variation in defensive behavior in Neotropical snakes and emphasizes the foundational importance of context dependence in conceptual frameworks for understanding predator-prey interactions. and *On January 4, 2024, “Supplementary_material.pdf” was replaced with an updated version that has slightly different versions of Figures S4 and S8 after an error in code was corrected. Within “HeatmapFigures.zip,” two code files, “IndividualHeatmaps_matrices.R” and “FigureS4_S8_averagedHeatmaps.R” were updated to correct the code error. Three additional files were added to both the “figures” and “matrices” folders within the subfolder “heatmaps.” These files represent the correlation matrices, by body part, and graphical representation of the matrices for one experimental trial that had previously been excluded due to the code error.
- Keyword:
- context-dependence, anti-predator behavior, Peruvian Amazon, ontogeny, coral snake mimicry, Colubridae
- Citation to related publication:
- Sealey, B.A.*, Larson, J.G.*, Westeen, E.P., Sanchez-Paredes, C.M., Moore, T.Y., Davis Rabosky, A.R. Body size and predator cues structure variation in defensive displays of Neotropical calico snakes (Oxyrhopus spp.). Ethology. In press. *Authors contributed equally
- Discipline:
- Science
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- Creator:
- Rana, Gurpreet K., Reynolds, Christopher W., Rha, Jennifer Y., Lenselink, Allison M., Asokumar, Dhanya, Zebib, Laura, Giacona, Francesca L. , Islam, Nowshin N., Kannikeswaran, Sanjana, Manuel, Kara, Cheung, Allison, Marzoughi, Maedeh , and Heisler, Michele
- Description:
- The search data supports a literature review project on "Innovative strategies and implementation science approaches for health delivery among migrants in humanitarian settings". The data included in the dataset are the complete search strategies (rtf file) and the exported results of all citations from all databases (ris file) after removal of duplicate citations.
- Keyword:
- humanitarian setting, migrant, forced displacement , health delivery, implementation science, and scoping review
- Discipline:
- Health Sciences
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- Creator:
- Luyet, Chloe, Elvati, Paolo, Vinh, Jordan, and Violi, Angela
- Description:
- A growing body of work has linked key biological activities to the mechanical properties of cellular membranes, and as a means of identification. Here, we present a computational approach to simulate and compare the vibrational spectra in the low-THz region for mammalian and bacterial membranes, investigating the effect of membrane asymmetry and composition, as well as the conserved frequencies of a specific cell. We find that asymmetry does not impact the vibrational spectra, and the impact of sterols depends on the mobility of the components of the membrane. We demonstrate that vibrational spectra can be used to distinguish between membranes and, therefore, could be used in identification of different organisms. The method presented, here, can be immediately extended to other biological structures (e.g., amyloid fibers, polysaccharides, and protein-ligand structures) in order to fingerprint and understand vibrations of numerous biologically-relevant nanoscale structures.
- Keyword:
- molecular dynamics, membranes, mechanical vibration, bacterial identification, and Staphylococcus aureus
- Citation to related publication:
- Luyet C, Elvati P, Vinh J, Violi A. Low-THz Vibrations of Biological Membranes. Membranes. 2023; 13(2):139. https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes13020139
- Discipline:
- Engineering
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- Creator:
- Elvati, Paolo, Luyet, Chloe, Wang, Yichun, Liu, Changjiang, VanEpps, J. Scott, Kotov, Nicholas A., and Violi, Angela
- Description:
- Amyloid nanofibers are abundant in microorganisms and are integral components of many biofilms, serving various purposes, from virulent to structural. Nonetheless, the precise characterization of bacterial amyloid nanofibers has been elusive, with incomplete and contradicting results. The present work focuses on the molecular details and characteristics of PSMa1-derived functional amyloids present in Staphylococcus aureus biofilms, using a combination of computational and experimental techniques, to develop a model that can aid the design of compounds to control amyloid formation. Results from molecular dynamics simulations, guided and supported by spectroscopy and microscopy, show that PSMa1 amyloid nanofibers present a helical structure formed by two protofilaments, have an average diameter of about 12 nm, and adopt a left-handed helicity with a periodicity of approximately 72 nm. The chirality of the self-assembled nanofibers, an intrinsic geometric property of its constituent peptides, is central to determining the fibers' lateral growth.
- Keyword:
- molecular self-assembly, computational nanotechnology, nanobiotechnology, and structural properties
- Citation to related publication:
- Paolo Elvati, Chloe Luyet, Yichun Wang, Changjiang Liu, J. Scott VanEpps, Nicholas A. Kotov, and Angela Violi ACS Applied Nano Materials 2023 6 (8), 6594-6604 DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.3c00174
- Discipline:
- Engineering and Science
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- Creator:
- Penner-Hahn, James, Sension, Roseanne, McClain, Taylor, Lamb, Ryan, Alonso-Mori, Roberto, Lima, Frederico, Ardana-Lamas, Fernando, Biednov, Mykola, Chollet, Matthieu, Chung, Taewon, Deb, Aniruddha, Dewan, Paul, Gee, Leland, Huang, Joel, Yifeng, Khakhulin, Dmitry, Li, Jianhao, Michocki, Lindsay, Miller, Nicholas, Otte, Florian, Uemura, Yohei, and van Driel, Tim
- Description:
- UV-visible, X-ray absorption, and X-ray emission data used to characterize the dynamics of aquo and hydroxo cobalamin. Details of data collection and reduction are provided in the associated manuscript. Data files are all text files which contain tab-delimited columns of data corresponding to each figure in the manuscript.
- Keyword:
- Ultrafast, X-ray, Transient absorption, cobalamin, vitamin B12, XAS, XES, and XANES
- Citation to related publication:
- Sension, R.J., et al. (2023). Watching Excited State Dynamics with Optical and X-ray Probes: The Excited State Dynamics of Aquocobalamin and Hydroxocobalamin. J. Am. Chem. Soc. in press. and https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c04099
- Discipline:
- Science
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- Creator:
- Zielinski, Ruth E, Kukula, Vida, Apetorgbor, Veronica, Awini, Elizabeth, Moyer, Cheryl, Badu-Gyan, Georgina, Williams, John, Lockhart, Nancy, and Lori, Jody R
- Description:
- This is a process evaluation of the RCT, Group Antenatal Care and Delivery project (GRAND) to identify and document patient, provider, and system barriers and facilitators to program implementation. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, potential and actual influences on the quality and conduct of the program's operations, implementation, and service delivery were identified. Only the seven (7) sites randomized to the Group ANC (G-ANC) intervention were included for collection of process evaluation data since the evaluation was of G-ANC implementation. Data were collected from August 2019 to November 2020 and included both quantitative and qualitative data sources.
- Keyword:
- Group Antenatal Care, Ghana, and Process Evaluation
- Citation to related publication:
- Zielinski R, Kukula V, Apetorgbor V, Awini E, Moyer C, Badu-Gyan G, et al. (2023) “With group antenatal care, pregnant women know they are not alone”: The process evaluation of a group antenatal care intervention in Ghana. PLoS ONE 18(11): e0291855. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291855
- Discipline:
- International Studies and Health Sciences