Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
In 2014 alone, 40% of all drug abuse-related emergency department visits involved cocaine, and despite the detrimental effects there is still no FDA approved treatment for cocaine use disorders (CUDs; Dawn, 2014). Studies show that serotonin 1B receptor (5HT1BR) agonists modulate cocaine abuse-related behaviors in opposite directions depending on the phase of the addiction cycle in male rats. In particular, the selective 5HT1BR agonist, CP94,253, facilitates cocaine intake during maintenance of daily cocaine self-administration. Paradoxically, after 21 days of abstinence, CP94,253 attenuates cocaine intake in male rats on a low effort fixed ratio 5 (FR5) and a high effort progressive ratio (PR) schedule of reinforcement. PR measures motivation as it requires an exponentially increasing number of lever responses to obtain the next reinforcer after a successful reinforcer. In contrast to male rats, we recently found CP94,253 attenuates cocaine intake before and after abstinence on an FR5 schedule of reinforcement in female rats, suggesting the attenuating effects of CP94,253 on cocaine intake is not dependent on a period of abstinence in females. However, the effect of CP94,253 on motivation for cocaine has not yet been examined in female rats. Therefore, we addressed this gap in the present study. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to self-administer 0.375 mg/kg, IV cocaine or to obtain sucrose pellets (45 mg) on a PR schedule of reinforcement and were then pretreated with vehicle or CP94,253 (3.2, 5.6 and 10 mg/kg, SC) prior to their self-administration session. A separate cohort was pretreated with CP94,253 to examine the effects of CP94,253 on cocaine-seeking behavior (i.e., operant responses when cocaine is no longer available) and spontaneous locomotion after 21 or 60 days of abstinence. The preliminary findings show that CP94,253 has minimal impacts on decreasing cocaine intake on a PR schedule in female rats but decreases cue reactivity up to 60 days after abstinence in female rats. These findings suggest that 5-HT1BR agonists may be useful treatments for cocaine craving.
Methods: We have designed a multiplexed magnetics programmable bead ELISA (MagProBE) to profile the immune responses of the proteins from 11 high-risk HPV types and 2 low-risk types—106 genes in total. HPV genes were optimized for human expression and either built with PCR or commercially purchased, and cloned into the Gateway-compatible pANT7_cGST vector for in vitro transcription/translation (IVTT) in a MagProBE array. Anti-GST antibody (Ab) labeling was then used to measure gene expression.
Results: 53/106 (50%) HPV genes have been cloned and tested for expression of protein. 91% of HPV proteins expressed at levels above the background control (MFI = 2288), and the mean expression was MFI = 4318. Codon-optimized genes have also shown a 20% higher expression over non-codon optimized genes.
Conclusion: Although this research is ongoing, it suggests that gene optimization may improve IVTT expression of HPV proteins in human HeLa lysate. Once the remaining HPV proteins have been expression confirmed, the cDNA for each gene will be printed onto slides and tested in serologic assays to identify potential Ab biomarkers to CIN3.