Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    THE IMPACT OF CULTURE MEDIA ON THE IN VITRO PRODUCTION OF CAT BLASTOCYSTS AND EXPLANT QUALITY
    (2012) Nestle, Emily; Keefer, Carol L; Animal Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Continued improvements in embryo culture media composition allow for the growth of high quality blastocysts, which can be used to derive embryonic stem cells (ESCs). ESCs are capable of becoming any cell type in the body making them a valuable research tool for therapeutic and regenerative research, while furthering our understanding of embryonic development and cell differentiation. The domestic cat is an important model species for both human medicine and wild felids. Cat embryo culture produces blastocysts at a rate far below that of the mouse and initial attempts at deriving cat ESCs have resulted in embryonic stem-like cells, which cannot be maintained indefinitely. In this study we assessed and compared the quality of cat blastocysts produced in vitro using two commercial human blastocyst growth media, and the maintenance of pluripotency markers OCT-4 and NANOG in inner cell mass explants from in vitro produced blastocysts over 14 days.
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    Evaluation of Lef1 Transcription Factor in Mammalian Preimplantation Embryos
    (2007-09-14) Meece, Ashley Elaine; Keefer, Carol L; Animal Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The first lineage differentiation of cells during pre-implantation embryo development is critical for continued embryonic growth. Though several transcription factors (TFs) have been identified that are involved in this transition, a specific mechanism of regulation has yet to be determined. Previous studies in our laboratory have shown the TF Lef1 is involved in differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells into trophoblastic stem cells through the Wnt signaling pathway. Lef1 is known to be involved in lineage determination of adult skin stem cells. As we observed that two isoforms of Lef1 were expressed at different stages of pre-implantation development, we hypothesized that Lef1 was interacting with the other well-established lineage differentiation TFs, Nanog, Oct4, and Cdx2, in these early embryos. At the blastocyst stage, no significant changes in mRNA expression were seen when siRNAs, specifically designed to knockdown Lef1 expression, were injected in early embryos; however, knockdown of Lef1 did not interfere with blastocyst formation.