College of Agriculture

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/4

As the foundation of the land grant mission at Montana State University, the College of Agriculture and the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station provide instruction in traditional and innovative degree programs and conduct research on old and new challenges for Montana’s agricultural community. This integration creates opportunities for students and faculty to excel through hands-on learning, to serve through campus and community engagement, to explore unique solutions to distinct and interesting questions and to connect Montanans with the global community through research discoveries and outreach.

Browse

Filters

20142

Settings

search.filters.applied.f.department: search.filters.department.Microbiology & Cell Biology.Subject: search.filters.subject.Genetics

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    From dinosaurs to birds: a tail of evolution
    (2014-05) Rashid, Dana J.; Chapman, Susan C.; Larsson, Hans C. E.; Organ, Chris L.; Merzdorf, Christa; Bradley, Roger S.; Horner, John R.
    A particularly critical event in avian evolution was the transition from long- to short-tailed birds. Primitive bird tails underwent significant alteration, most notably reduction of the number of caudal vertebrae and fusion of the distal caudal vertebrae into an ossified pygostyle. These changes, among others, occurred over a very short evolutionary interval, which brings into focus the underlying mechanisms behind those changes. Despite the wealth of studies delving into avian evolution, virtually nothing is understood about the genetic and developmental events responsible for the emergence of short, fused tails. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of the signaling pathways and morphological events that contribute to tail extension and termination and examine how mutations affecting the genes that control these pathways might influence the evolution of the avian tail. To generate a list of candidate genes that may have been modulated in the transition to short-tailed birds, we analyzed a comprehensive set of mouse mutants. Interestingly, a prevalent pleiotropic effect of mutations that cause fused caudal vertebral bodies (as in the pygostyles of birds) is tail truncation. We identified 23 mutations in this class, and these were primarily restricted to genes involved in axial extension. At least half of the mutations that cause short, fused tails lie in the Notch/Wnt pathway of somite boundary formation or differentiation, leading to changes in somite number or size. Several of the mutations also cause additional bone fusions in the trunk skeleton, reminiscent of those observed in primitive and modern birds. All of our findings were correlated to the fossil record. An open question is whether the relatively sudden appearance of short-tailed birds in the fossil record could be accounted for, at least in part, by the pleiotropic effects generated by a relatively small number of mutational events.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    X chromosome inactivation: recent advances and a look forward
    (Elsevier, 2014-10) Reijo Pera, Renee A.; Briggs, Sharon F.
    X chromosome inactivation, the transcriptional inactivation of one X chromosome in somatic cells of female mammals, has revealed important advances in our understanding of development, epigenetic control, and RNA biology. Most of this knowledge comes from extensive studies in the mouse; however, there are some significant differences when compared to human biology. This is especially true in pluripotent cell types and, over the past few years, a significant amount of work has been dedicated to understanding these differences. This review focuses specifically on recent advances in the mechanism of Xist spreading, the role of Xist in cancer, the effects of reprogramming on X chromosome inactivation in human induced pluripotent stem cells, and new tools for studying X chromosome inactivation.
Copyright (c) 2002-2022, LYRASIS. All rights reserved.