Masters Theses

Keywords and Phrases

Biosynthetics; Food Restriction; Manduca Sexta; Metabolism; Oxidative Cellular Damage

Abstract

“Previously, a theoretical model for unravelling the entwined effects of metabolic and biosynthetic rates on oxidative cellular damage accumulation during an animal’s growth period was developed and tested in hornworms (Manduca sexta larvae). In theory, if an animal had unrestricted amounts of energy and a high repair efficiency, they could repair most of the oxidative cellular damage accumulated, regardless of how their metabolic rate varies. However, organisms have a finite amount of energy that is allocated to repair and, during the animal’s development period, a considerable amount of energy goes towards growth eliciting a tradeoff between biosynthesis and repair. The current model predicts that cellular damage is more influenced by the biosynthetic rate than the metabolic rate. This leads to the hypothesis that during growth, the variation in biosynthetic rate is the major cause of variation in the level of cellular damage; whereas the variation in the metabolic rate only has a minimal impact. To further test the prediction, variations in the metabolic and biosynthetic rates was induced in 5th instar Manduca sexta larvae by manipulating environmental factors (ambient temperature and food supply level) allowing for the contributions of each rate to cellular damage to be evaluated independently. The corresponding protein carbonyl levels were assayed as a proxy of cellular damage; however, the results were inconclusive and more proxies of damage will need to be considered”--Abstract, page iv.

Advisor(s)

Hou, Chen

Committee Member(s)

Huang, Yue-Wern
Olbricht, Gayla R.

Department(s)

Biological Sciences

Degree Name

M.S. in Applied and Environmental Biology

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Fall 2018

Journal article titles appearing in thesis/dissertation

  • The extremely low energy cost of biosynthesis in a holometabolous insect species compared with a hemimetabolous species

Pagination

xi, 88 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographic references.

Rights

© 2018 Nikki Jihui Gomez, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Thesis Number

T 11811

Electronic OCLC #

1313117398

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Included in

Biology Commons

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