Impact of Matrix Metallopeptidase-9 Supplementation During In Vitro Maturation of Bovine Oocytes

Heat-induced decreases in bovine blastocyst development have been related to reductions in latent matrix metallopeptidase-9 (proMMP9) production from maturing cumulus-oocyte complexes. Elevated intrafollicular proMMP9 levels at the time of oocyte retrieval have been positively related to pregnancy following human IVF. Thus, we hypothesized that heat-induced reductions in proMMP9 levels during oocyte maturation may be responsible for decreased blastocyst development. As a first step towards testing this hypothesis, bovine cumulus-oocyte complexes were matured at 38.5°C for 24 h with 0 or 300 ng/mL recombinant human proMMP9 (rhMMP9) added at 0 h of in vitro maturation (hIVM). No differences were found in ability of oocytes to cleave or form blastocyst-stage embryos after IVF. In a second study, cumulus-oocyte complexes were matured at 38.5 or 41.0°C (first 12 h only, then transferred to 38.5°C). At 12 hIVM, 0 or 300 ng/mL of rhMMP9 was added. Heat stress exposure decreased 24 hIVM proMMP9 levels in 0 (P = 0.006) but not 300 ng/mL groups and elevated progesterone levels most when 300 ng/mL rhMMP9 was added (P = 0.0002). Heat stress exposure did not affect ability of oocytes to cleave but reduced blastocyst development (P = 0.006). Independent of maturation temperature, addition of rhMMP9 decreased cleavage (P = 0.02) and blastocyst development (P = 0.08). In a third study, 0, 30 or 300 ng/mL rhMMP9 was added at 18 hIVM to cumulus-oocyte complexes matured at 38.5 or 41.0°C (first 12 h only, then transferred to 38.5°C). Heat stress exposure decreased 24 hIVM proMMP9 levels in 0 (P = 0.007) and 30 (P = 0.04) but not 300 ng/mL groups and increased progesterone levels in 0 and 300 but not 30 ng/mL rhMMP9 groups (P = 0.039). Heat stress exposure decreased cleavage (P \u3c 0.0001) and blastocyst development (P \u3c 0.0001). Independent of maturation temperature, addition of rhMMP9 did not alter cleavage but decreased blastocyst development (P = 0.02). In summary, addition of rhMMP9 at evaluated doses and times during IVM did not restore development of heat-stressed oocytes. Addition of 30 or 300 ng/mL rhMMP9 after 12 hIVM, regardless of maturation temperature, was detrimental to development

Good Fences: American Sexual Exceptionalism and Minority Religions

This dissertation is about the ways sexual difference complicates contemporary American religious pluralism, particularly since 1980. Suspicions of sexual deviance frequently haunt minority religions, regardless of their communities’ mores or practices. To explore this issue, I engage a set of popular narratives that portray minority religions (Islam, Mormonism, and witchcraft) as predatory, coercing or duping vulnerable American women and children into religious nonconformity and sexual transgression. Federal agents, law enforcement officials, foreign policymakers, and others have used such narratives—and a desire to liberate their alleged victims—to justify restraining these “dangerous” forms of religious difference. Books like Under the Banner of Heaven, Not Without My Daughter, and Michelle Remembers are part of a broad and persistent public discourse about the appropriate role and regulation of religious and sexual difference. My case studies indicate a persistent and troubling pattern of responses toward religious and sexual difference within the American public sphere. These narratives of contact with American religious minority communities provided significant material consequences and are symptomatic of a broader trend in American public discourse – one that simultaneously vaunts American religious tolerance and discourages religious and sexual difference. I present these stories and their public reception as contributions to an ongoing public negotiation of the kinds of beliefs and practices mainstream Americans will and will not tolerate. Media pundits, law enforcement officials, and Congress members have sanctioned interference into religious minority communities as efforts to liberate vulnerable American women and children. These polemics encourage attempts to rescue community members who are assumed to be too weak mentally or physically to resist presumably dangerous beliefs and practices. My case studies identify minority religious communities as especially given to gendered and sexual exploitation of American women and children. By locating the abuse of women and children in America’s religious margins, these rhetorics of “liberation” encourage normative religious and sexual practices without violating a professed national commitment to religious freedom. Paradoxically, such liberatory rhetorics often work to constrain Americans’ religious and sexual freedoms while doing little to prevent violence against women and children.Doctor of Philosoph

Mythical beasts: how queer bodies expand the religious imaginary

The chiasmus of work on and with the body (askesis) and knowledge created by being-in-body (noesis) makes possible radically different thought about bodies and religiosity. Religion thus emerges as a site of meaning-making: an explanation for why one's body is the way that it is and a space in which to celebrate that body and use it in service to the divine. I read Foucault's theory of becoming-homosexual and Jantzen's religious philosophy of becoming-divine against the interviews and writings of Raven Kaldera, a male-to-female transsexual in the Northern Tradition. Kaldera's story is one of self-fashioning: he has shaped his body and his life to reflect his noetic experience of the divine – Hela, Norse patroness of the dead, requested that Kaldera serve as shaman to a sexually transgressive Norse Pagan community. I conclude that Kaldera instantiates a liberatory model of religiosity for those excluded by the western religious imaginary

Perceived Understanding of Athletic Training Students\u27 and Education Students\u27 Field Experience by the Campus Community

In volume 4, Issue 1 of the JSMAHS you will find Professional Research Abstracts, as well as Bachelor Student Research Abstracts and Case Reports. Thank you for viewing this 4th Annual OATA Special Editio

A Kazal-Type Serine Protease Inhibitor from the Defense Gland Secretion of the Subterranean Termite Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki

Coptotermes formosanus is an imported, subterranean termite species with the largest economic impact in the United States. The frontal glands of the soldier caste termites comprising one third of the body mass, contain a secretion expelled through a foramen in defense. The small molecule composition of the frontal gland secretion is well-characterized, but the proteins remain to be identified. Herein is reported the structure and function of one of several proteins found in the termite defense gland secretion. TFP4 is a 6.9 kDa, non-classical group 1 Kazal-type serine protease inhibitor with activity towards chymotrypsin and elastase, but not trypsin. The 3-dimensional solution structure of TFP4 was solved with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and represents the first structure from the taxonomic family, Rhinotermitidae. Based on the structure of TFP4, the protease inhibitor active loop (Cys8 to Cys16) was identified

A sex-specific switch between visual and olfactory inputs underlies adaptive sex differences in behavior

While males and females largely share the same genome and nervous system, they differ profoundly in reproductive investments and require distinct behavioral, morphological and physiological adaptations. How can the nervous system, while bound by both developmental and biophysical constraints, produce these sexdifferences in behavior? Here we uncover a novel dimorphism in Drosophila melanogaster that allows deployment of completely different behavioral repertoires in males and females with minimum changes to circuit architecture. Sexual differentiation of only a small number of higher-order neurons in the brain leads to a change in connectivity related to the primary reproductive needs of both sexes - courtship pursuit in males and communal oviposition in females. This study explains how an apparently similar brain generates distinct behavioral repertoires in the two sexes and presents a fundamental principle of neural circuit organization that may be extended to other species

Genome sequence of the Ornithopus/Lupinus-nodulating Bradyrhizobium sp. strain WSM471

Bradyrhizobium sp. strain WSM471 is an aerobic, motile, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming rod that was isolated from an effective nitrogen-(N-2) fixing root nodule formed on the annual legume Ornithopus pinnatus (Miller) Druce growing at Oyster Harbour, Albany district, Western Australia in 1982. This strain is in commercial production as an inoculant for Lupinus and Ornithopus. Here we describe the features of Bradyrhizobium sp. strain WSM471, together with genome sequence information and annotation. The 7,784,016 bp high-quality-draft genome is arranged in 1 scaffold of 2 contigs, contains 7,372 protein-coding genes and 58 RNA-only encoding genes, and is one of 20 rhizobial genomes sequenced as part of the DOE Joint Genome Institute 2010 Community Sequencing Program

Genome sequence of the Lebeckia ambigua-nodulating 'Burkholderia sprentiae' strain WSM5005T

"Burkholderia sprentiae" strain WSM5005(T) is an aerobic, motile, Gram-negative, non-sporeforming rod that was isolated in Australia from an effective N-2-fixing root nodule of Lebeckia ambigua collected in Klawer, Western Cape of South Africa, in October 2007. Here we describe the features of "Burkholderia sprentiae" strain WSM5005T, together with the genome sequence and its annotation. The 7,761,063 bp high-quality-draft genome is arranged in 8 scaffolds of 236 contigs, contains 7,147 protein-coding genes and 76 RNA-only encoding genes, and is one of 20 rhizobial genomes sequenced as part of the DOE Joint Genome Institute 2010 Community Sequencing Program