Introducing High School Students to Careers in Osteopathic Medicine.

An aging population and expansion of health care coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have led to a predicted deficit of primary care physicians by 2025. In response, medical schools must develop new strategies to identify students early in their educational pathways to encourage exploration of careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, especially medicine. Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences developed 2 internship programs, Oklahoma Science Training and Research Students (OKStars) and Native OKStars, to introduce high school students to osteopathic medicine.

Isolation and in vitro binding of mating type plus fertilization tubules from Chlamydomonas.

During fertilization in Chlamydomonas, adhesion and fusion of gametes occur at the tip of specialized regions of the plasma membrane, known as mating structures. The mating type minus (mt[-]) structure is a slightly raised dome-shaped region located at the apical end of the cell body. In contrast, the activated mating type plus (mt[+]) structure is an actin-filled, microvillouslike organelle.

Gametic cell adhesion and fusion in the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas.

Differentiation of vegetative cells of the haploid eukaryote Chlamydomonas is dependent on environmental conditions. Upon depletion of nitrogen and exposure to light, vegetative cells undergo a mitotic division, generating gametes that are either mating-type plus (mt[+]) or mating-type minus (mt[-]). As gametes of opposite mating type encounter one another, an initial adhesive interaction mediated by flagella induces a signal transduction pathway that results in activation of gametes.

Regulation of flagellar length in Chlamydomonas.

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has two apically localized flagella that are maintained at an equal and appropriate length. Assembly and maintenance of flagella requires a microtubule-based transport system known as intraflagellar transport (IFT). During IFT, proteins destined for incorporation into or removal from a flagellum are carried along doublet microtubules via IFT particles.

Regulation of flagellar assembly by glycogen synthase kinase 3 in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii controls flagellar assembly such that flagella are of an equal and predetermined length. Previous studies demonstrated that lithium, an inhibitor of glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3), induced flagellar elongation, suggesting that a lithium-sensitive signal transduction pathway regulated flagellar length (S. Nakamura, H.

A novel MAP kinase regulates flagellar length in Chlamydomonas.

Little is known about the molecular basis of organelle size control in eukaryotes. Cells of the biflagellate alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii actively maintain their flagella at a precise length. Chlamydomonas mutants that lose control of flagellar length have been isolated and used to demonstrate that a dynamic process keeps flagella at an appropriate length.