Dealing with Student Anxiety

A presentation on how university faculty can recognize and deal with student anxiety

Cleaning Efficiency of Nickel Titanium GT and .04 Rotary Files when used in a Torque Controlled Rotary Handpiece

This study determined if the cleaning efficiency of NiTi rotary files in an endodontic electric handpiece using a no torque control setting was superior to that obtained when using the torque control feature. Fifty extracted human anterior teeth with straight canals were divided into two groups of 20 and two control groups of 5. Canals were instrumented with GT and .04 Profile NiTi files until a size 35 advanced to working length. Samples were sectioned, the apical 6 mm of the canal was photographed (x20) and projected onto a 3 x 4 foot grid with squares measuring 0.5 inches each. Total debris was the percentage of the number of squares containing debris versus the total number of squares. Results showed that the teeth in the torque controlled group showed an average of 24.99% debris vs. 15.55% for the teeth in the no torque group. The difference was not statistically significant

Distribution of extracellular flavins in a coastal marine basin and their relationship to redox gradients and microbial community members

The flavins (including flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and riboflavin (RF)) are a class of organic compounds synthesized by organisms to assist in critical redox reactions. While known to be secreted extracellularly by some species in laboratory-based cultures, flavin concentrations are largely unreported in the natural environment. Here, we present pore water and water column profiles of extracellular flavins (FMN and RF) and two degradation products (lumiflavin and lumichrome) from a coastal marine basin in the Southern California Bight alongside ancillary geochemical and 16S rRNA microbial community data. Flavins were detectable at picomolar concentrations in the water column (93–300 pM FMN, 14–40 pM RF) and low nanomolar concentrations in pore waters (250–2070 pM FMN, 11–210 pM RF). Elevated pore water flavin concentrations displayed an increasing trend with sediment depth and were significantly correlated with the total dissolved Fe (negative) and Mn (positive) concentrations. Network analysis revealed a positive relationship between flavins and the relative abundance of Dehalococcoidia and the MSBL9 clade of Planctomycetes, indicating possible secretion by members of these lineages. These results suggest that flavins are a common component of the so-called shared extracellular metabolite pool, especially in anoxic marine sediments where they exist at physiologically relevant concentrations for metal oxide reduction

The roles of B vitamins in phytoplankton nutrition: new perspectives and prospects

B vitamins play essential roles in central metabolism. These organic water-soluble molecules act as, or as part of, coenzymes within the cell. Unlike land plants, many eukaryotic algae are auxotrophic for certain B vitamins. Recent progress in algal genetic resources and environmental chemistry have promoted a renewal of interest in the role of vitamins in governing phytoplankton dynamics, and illuminated amazing versatility in phytoplankton vitamin metabolism. Accumulating evidence demonstrates metabolic complexity in the production and bioavailability of different vitamin forms, coupled with specialized acquisition strategies to salvage and remodel vitamin precursors. Here, I describe recent advances and discuss how they redefine our view of the way in which vitamins are cycled in aquatic ecosystems and their importance in structuring phytoplankton communities

Exploring Vitamin B1 Cycling and Its Connections to the Microbial Community in the North Atlantic Ocean

Vitamin B1 (thiamin) is an essential coenzyme for all cells. Recent findings from experimental cell biology and genome surveys have shown that thiamin cycling by plankton is far more complex than was previously understood. Many plankton cells cannot produce thiamin (are auxotrophic) and obligately require an exogenous source of thiamin or one or more of 5 different thiamin-related compounds (TRCs). Despite this emerging evidence for the evolution among plankton of complex interactions related to thiamin, the influence of TRCs on plankton community structure and productivity are not understood. We report measurements of three dissolved TRCs 4-amino-5-aminomethyl-2-methylpyrimidine (AmMP), 5-(2-hydroxyethyl)-4-methyl-1,3-thiazole-2-carboxylic acid (cHET), and 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol (HET) that have never before been assayed in seawater. Here we characterize them alongside other TRCs that were measured previously [thiamin and 4-amino-5-hydroxymethyl-2-methylpyrimidine (HMP)], in depth profiles from a latitudinal transect in the north Atlantic in March 2018. TRC concentrations ranged from femptomolar to picomolar. Surface depletion relative to a maximum near the bottom of the euphotic zone and low concentrations at deeper depths were consistent features. Our observations suggest that when bacterial abundance and production are low, TRC concentrations approach a steady state where TRC production and consumption terms are balanced. Standing stocks of TRCs also appear to be positively correlated with bacterial production. However, near the period of peak biomass in the accumulation phase of a bloom we observed an inverse relationship between TRCs and bacterial production, coincident with an increased abundance of Flavobacteria that comparative genomics indicates could be vitamin B1 auxotrophs. While these observations suggest that the dissolved pool of TRCs is often at steady state, with TRC production and consumption balanced, our data suggests that bloom induced shifts in microbial community structure and activity may cause a decoupling between TRC production and consumption, leading to increased abundances of some populations of bacteria that are putatively vitamin B1 auxotrophs

Extracellular superoxide production by key microbes in the global ocean

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Sutherland, K. M., Coe, A., Gast, R. J., Plummer, S., Suffridge, C. P., Diaz, J. M., Bowman, J. S., Wankel, S. D., & Hansel, C. M. Extracellular superoxide production by key microbes in the global ocean. Limnology and Oceanography, (2019), doi:10.1002/lno.11247.Bacteria and eukaryotes produce the reactive oxygen species superoxide both within and outside the cell. Although superoxide is typically associated with the detrimental and sometimes fatal effects of oxidative stress, it has also been shown to be involved in a range of essential biochemical processes, including cell signaling, growth, differentiation, and defense. Light‐independent extracellular superoxide production has been shown to be widespread among many marine heterotrophs and phytoplankton, but the extent to which this trait is relevant to marine microbial physiology and ecology throughout the global ocean is unknown. Here, we investigate the dark extracellular superoxide production of five groups of organisms that are geographically widespread and represent some of the most abundant organisms in the global ocean. These include Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus, Pelagibacter, Phaeocystis, and Geminigera. Cell‐normalized net extracellular superoxide production rates ranged seven orders of magnitude, from undetectable to 14,830 amol cell−1 h−1, with the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus being the lowest producer and the cryptophyte Geminigera being the most prolific producer. Extracellular superoxide production exhibited a strong inverse relationship with cell number, pointing to a potential role in cell signaling. We demonstrate that rapid, cell‐number–dependent changes in the net superoxide production rate by Synechococcus and Pelagibacter arose primarily from changes in gross production of extracellular superoxide, not decay. These results expand the relevance of dark extracellular superoxide production to key marine microbes of the global ocean, suggesting that superoxide production in marine waters is regulated by a diverse suite of marine organisms in both dark and sunlit waters.The authors would like to acknowledge their funding sources including NASA NESSF NNX15AR62H (K.M.S.), NASA Exobiology grant NNX15AM04G to S.D.W. and C.M.H., NSF‐OCE grant 1355720 to C.M.H., NSF‐OPP 1641019 (J.S.B), and Simons Foundation SCOPE Award ID 329108 (Sallie W. Chisholm). The authors would also like to thank the Harvey lab (Skidaway Institute of Oceanography) for use of their flow cytometer in this study. We thank Stephen Giovannoni and Sallie Chisholm for providing bacteria strains and laboratory facilities. Additional thanks to Marianne Acker, Rogier Braakman, and Aldo Arellano for assistance in lab and helpful conversations