Voxel Volumes and Biomass: Estimating Vegetation Volume and Litter Accumulation of Exotic Annual Grasses Using Automated Ultra-High-Resolution SfM and Advanced Classification Techniques.

In much of the northern Great Basin of the western United States, rangelands, and semi-arid ecosystems invaded by exotic annual grasses such as cheatgrass () and medusahead () are experiencing an increasingly short fire cycle, which is compounding and persistent. Improving and expanding ground-based field methods for measuring the above-ground biomass (AGB) may enable more sample collections across a landscape and over succession regimes and better harmonize with other remote sensing techniques. Developments and increased adoption of unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) and instrumentation for vegetation monitoring enable greater understanding of vegetation in many ecosystems.

PALS1-dependent modulations of mRNA profiles in MDCK II cells grown in non-confluent monolayers and three-dimensional cysts.

In epithelia, apicobasal cell polarization is closely linked to cell-cell contact formation, both controlled by the conserved Crumbs (CRB) complex, which includes the transmembrane protein Crumbs (CRB3a) and adapter proteins PALS1, PATJ, and LIN7c. In MDCK II cells, a model for cell polarization, depletion of PALS1 - which binds to all CRB components - leads to defective cell polarization and improper distribution of tight junction proteins, resulting in severe epithelial barrier defects in 3D cyst models. This study investigated whether this phenotype is associated with transcriptional changes by analyzing wildtype (WT) and PALS1 knockout (KO) MDCK II cell lines grown under non-confluent conditions and in 3D cyst cultures.

Metabolic Shift in Porcine Spermatozoa during Sperm Capacitation-Induced Zinc Flux.

Mammalian spermatozoa rely on glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation for energy leading up to fertilization. Sperm capacitation involves a series of well-regulated biochemical steps that are necessary to give spermatozoa the ability to fertilize the oocyte. Additionally, zinc ion (Zn) fluxes have recently been shown to occur during mammalian sperm capacitation.

Tagging the Gene in Zebrafish with Monomeric Red Fluorescent Protein Using Biotin Homology Arms.

Tjp1a and other tight junction and adherens proteins play important roles in cell-cell adhesion, scaffolding, and forming seals between cells in epithelial and endothelial tissues. In this study, we labeled Tjp1a of zebrafish with the monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated targeted integration of biotin-labeled polymerase chain reaction (PCR) generated templates. Labeling Tjp1a with RFP allowed us to follow membrane and junctional dynamics of epithelial and endothelial cells throughout zebrafish embryo development.

PALS1 is a key regulator of the lateral distribution of tight junction proteins in renal epithelial cells.

The evolutionarily conserved apical Crumbs (CRB) complex, consisting of the core components CRB3a (an isoform of CRB3), PALS1 and PATJ, plays a key role in epithelial cell-cell contact formation and cell polarization. Recently, we observed that deletion of one Pals1 allele in mice results in functional haploinsufficiency characterized by renal cysts. Here, to address the role of PALS1 at the cellular level, we generated CRISPR/Cas9-mediated PALS1-knockout MDCKII cell lines.