Talk Session 1
Cellular, Molecular & Integrative Biology
February 21, 2019
Shultz Theatre
15:30-17:00
Talk Session 2
Ecology
February 21, 2019
Room 118
15:30-17:00
Talk Session 1 Abstracts
Cellular, Molecular,
and Integrative Biology
Title: Mathematical Modeling of Glucose and Insulin Regulation in Diabetes Mellitus Type 1
​
Authors: Abinash Meher and Anuraag Shrivastav
​
Abstract: Diabetes Mellitus is a metabolic disorder which is generally caused by high blood glucose levels due to unavailability of sufficient insulin levels to control it due to various abnormalities in the insulin metabolism. Among the two types, type 1 diabetes may result from autoimmune destruction of insulin-producing β-cells of the pancreas which stops the insulin production which could be fatal without treatment. Diabetic research is one among the major research currently worldwide. To resolve the issues in this disease, apart from experimentations, mathematical models and simulations are being used to study quantitative diagnoses. Mathematical models not only can predict likelihood outcomes of therapeutic interventions but also provide treatment options for the diabetic patients. A good well-developed model exhibits the basic properties of the real system but is very complex. A simple model may lack important parameters. Mathematical modelling is an evolutionary process which update itself with the current available technology. In last 50 years, several computer algorithms have been proposed to understand the kinetics, and several models have been developed using Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE) and Delayed Differential Equations (DDE) to analyze the feedback systems in this regulation. Analysis of DDE gives better insight and more quantitative information than ODE since it also considers for the sensitivity and delay in the system but it’s very complex. We developed a DDE model by introducing the delays in an ODE to make it simpler.
Title: The Phosphorylation of a Protein Biomarker Influences the Behaviour of Breast Cancer Cells
​
Authors: Dean Reddick and Anuraag Shrivastav
​
Abstract: The latest statistics released by the Canadian Cancer Society depict that in 2017 25% of all female diagnosed cancers were breast cancers. Second on the list is lung cancer which comes in at a distant 12%. On average, everyday in Canada 72 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 14 women die as a result of the disease. In general, the primary problem with cancer cells is their propensity to divide at an accelerated rate leading to the formation of tumors. Recent studies from our research group have identified a protein biomarker (PB1) which may prove to be an important therapeutic target for slowing down the division rates of breast cancer cells. By controlling the phosphorylation status of PB1 we are able to manipulate where it will locate within cancer cells. When PB1 is restricted from entering into the nucleus of the cell, and thus restricted from having any effect on mitogenic gene transcription rates, it no longer has the ability to play its part in increasing cellular division rates. Future studies directed towards the development of small molecule drugs which will act to block the phosphorylation of PB1 in vivo may prove to be fundamental for slowing down breast cancer tumor growth and increasing the survival rates of breast cancer patients by affording them more time to receive vital cancer treatment regimes.
Title: Understanding Schizophrenia: Investigating the link between schizophrenia and endogenous retrovirus K
​
Author: Meagan Allardice
​
Abstract: Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder which can include positive and negative psychological symptoms, in addition to a myriad of motor symptoms. Many antipsychotic drugs have been developed based on the current understanding of schizophrenia. However, antipsychotics are not effective for all patients and do not treat the motor symptoms often present in schizophrenia. It has been repeatedly shown that endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) can have implications in neuroinflammatory diseases. Previous research has revealed that endogenous retrovirus K (ERVK) may play a role in the motor symptoms associated with ALS due to a possible role in neurodegeneration. The Douville Lab has decided to build upon this in the context of schizophrenia. Our lab has previously shown that in patients with schizophrenia there are increased levels of endogenous retrovirus K (ERVK) integrase (IN) protein. Further, it seems DNA repair mechanisms are dysregulated and there is a higher prevalence of DNA damage in ERVK IN expressing cells. In this project, we looked at other markers of DNA damage and DNA damage repair to determine whether these were affected by ERVK IN. This was done by performing western blots on samples of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with schizophrenia and control patients. Preliminary data points to potential disruption of other biomarkers in the DNA damage and repair pathways. This fundamental research may lead to better therapeutic options for individuals suffering from the life altering symptoms of this illness.
Title: Evading antimicrobial resistance: Using synthetic organophosphorus compounds to slow evolution
​
Author: Noah Choboter
​
Abstract: Antimicrobial resistance has become a global health crisis and is expected to become much worse in the coming years. New antibiotics are not being developed at a rate fast enough to combat antimicrobial resistance. To make matters worse, almost all antibiotics are derived from the natural environment in one form or another. Therefore, bacteria have evolved alongside these compounds for millions of years, which has selected for resistance mechanisms. My research focuses on synthetic organophosphorus compounds as a means to combat antimicrobial resistance. These synthetics are of particular significance because they do not occur naturally in the environment. This means they will likely resist evolutionary processes because they are foreign to bacteria. Initial studies indicate these compounds are highly potent in vitro (2 μg/mL) in inhibiting a variety of gram-positive pathogens and are not acutely toxic to mice. My objectives include screening similar organophosphorus compounds for antimicrobial activity and assessing potency. Those with activity will be characterized in terms of photosensitivity and mutagenic properties. Previous studies indicate that similar compounds only inhibit gram positives and not gram negatives. The lack of inhibition in gram-negatives is thought to be due to the low permeability of their outer membrane. This prevents the compounds from getting into the bacterial cell. To combat this, I will be exploring factors that increase the permeability of gram negatives.
Title: Association Between Autism Spectrum Disorder and Autoimmune Disorders: Just an Overreaction?
​
Authors: Matthew Love and Michele Liu
​
Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment disorder defined by deficits in social communication and interaction that cause significant impairment to overall functioning. Previous studies have theorized that autoimmunity leads to overexpression of microglial cells found in the developing fetus of a mother and stimulates neuroinflammation which disrupts fetal brain development. My hypothesis is that there is a significant association between ASD and autoimmune disorders (AID). My objectives are to investigate if AID’s in:
-
children have an increased risk of ASD.
-
prenatal or perinatal mothers increases the risk of their child being diagnosed with ASD.
The ASD cases, controls, and their mothers were selected from the Manitoba Population Research Data Repository. If the individual had two hospital visits and/or medical claims for ASD, where one of those claims was given by a specialist, then they were considered an ASD case. The ASD cases were matched to 5/6 ASD controls based on a propensity score. AID’s were selected if the frequency in any of the case or control populations was greater than 1%. Once the AID’s were chosen, each disorder was put into a generalized linear mixed model to determine how significant the disorder was to the risk of ASD. The ASD cases (n=5,366) and controls (n=27,224) had 24 AID’s, while prenatal mother cases (n=5,073) and controls (n=26,070) had 31 AID’s, and perinatal mother cases (n=333) and controls (n=1,989) had 34 AID’s. The models for these groups will uncover additional understanding to the etiology of ASD.
Title: Developing a synthetic disinfectant for Canadian chicken hatcheries: Phosphopyricin and its related compounds
​
Author: Jones Kalyniuk
​
Abstract: Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem for both human populations and commercial livestock industries. To avoid the use of antibiotics, the Canadian poultry industry currently uses disinfectants containing chlorine, ammonia, and iodine, which cause respiratory and skin irritation, making them difficult to work with. Among poultry pathogens such as E. coli and Staphylococcus is the Gram-positive bacterial genus Enterococcus, which is known to infect chicken eggs and cause developmental deformities such as hind-limb paralysis, or Spondylitis, making it an especially problematic pathogen for the poultry industry. Recently, a synthetic disinfectant has been developed called phosphopyricin, which is effective against Gram-positive bacteria, including Enterococcus, and appears to exhibit no toxic effects in mice. The synthetic nature of phosphopyricin also offers it a large advantage in that any resistances likely to develop would happen at a much slower rate due to the inherently lower instances of exposure. The primary objectives of my research will be to determine the minimum concentration of phosphopyricin and its related compounds needed to the inhibit growth of target pathogens, develop a solvent which allows for long-term storage, assess whether resistance develops after repeated exposure to the compound, and finally develop the compound as a spray or dip for treating eggs. Commercial use of phosphopyricin as a hatchery disinfectant has the potential to help reduce the development of disinfectant resistance and mortality rates in chicken stocks, which will overall lessen costs associated with bacterial contamination in Canadian hatcheries.
Talk Session 2 Abstracts
Ecology
Title: Using non-invasive techniques to study polar bear social behaviour
​
Authors: Paige B. Bissonnette, Jane M. Waterman and Stephen D. Petersen
​
Abstract: Social play is uncommon among adult mammals but has been documented among male polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in the Churchill, MB region. During the open-water season, the Western Hudson Bay (WHB) population of polar bears are fasting and fat reserves are low. Polar bear habitat in WHB is changing due to global warming, lengthening time spent on land without resources and leading to a decrease in average body condition. However, polar bears still devote time and energy to nonaggressive social play. Therefore, environmental changes may result in a modification of social behaviours in order to maintain healthy body condition. We predict that body condition and the timing of sea-ice breakup will influence the duration and extent of polar bear social play. Body condition was measured non-invasively by determining the number of pixels in a photograph spanning the height and girth of a polar bear. We found that body condition, with sea-ice breakup dates as a covariate, did not significantly influence the structure or frequency of social play. This suggests that either social play is an important life event and will be maintained as body condition declines, or that body condition has not decreased to the point where we can detect an influence on social play. We will also use thermal imagery to qualitatively assess temperature changes before and after play. We predict that as polar bears exert energy in a bout of social play, the temperature of exposed areas will increase, indicating that energy is being exerted.
Title: The Impact of Boat Noise on Freshwater Fishes
​
Authors: Katherine Fedoroff, Mike Pollock, Maud Ferrari and Doug Chivers
​
Abstract: Noise pollution is rapidly becoming more prevalent on a global scale, yet it is one of the least studied anthropocentric disturbances. Sound has low attenuation in water where it travels five times further than it does in air. Such effects, coupled with the wide spatial and temporal distribution of anthropocentric noise, make noise pollution a major concern for aquatic species that may lack refuge from this modern-day stressor. There is increasing evidence that boat noise can interfere with fish behaviour in terms of foraging, mating and managing predation risk. We look at how boat noise in the natural environment influences stress in yellow perch (Perca flavescens). In this field experiment fish will be randomly assigned to a treatment of 20 minutes of exposure to either ambient noise only (control) or ambient noise plus boat noise at a specific distance (100, 500, 750 or 1000 m) from the boat and with a 10 horse power engine. Then, fish will be transported back to shore, and dissolved oxygen and body size will be recorded giving us an understanding of their metabolic rate during exposure. Our preliminary experiments showed that fish exposed to boat noise had increased metabolic rate. This study will provide more information on the impacts of boat noise on fish in their natural environment, particularly with regard to freshwater lakes where data are very limited.
Title: Transgenerational re-triggering of fear in minnows
​
Authors: Himal Thapa, Adam L. Crane, Denis Meuthen, Grant E. Brown, Maud C. O. Ferrari
​
Abstract: Exposure to a high-risk environment is known to induce fearful behaviours that can be easily re-triggered after waning. However, when risk becomes chronic, animals may cease fearful behaviours in order to forage and reproduce. Here, we exposed minnows to risk every day for the first month of their life via injections of damaged conspecific skin (chemical alarm cues) which reliably indicates a predator attack. Then, high risk individuals and control individuals were raised in a risk-free environment for one year in which they reproduced. We then re-exposed parents and their offspring to a period of high risk to assess whether the early risk period affected responses to recent risk. We conducted behavioural observations in novel tanks before and after exposure to a novel odour to quantify baseline fear and neophobic behaviour. In the absence of early-life risk, parent minnows responded to recent risk with elevated baseline freezing behaviour and neophobia, as has been demonstrated in previous studies. Early life risk had no effect on this response pattern, neither amplifying or diminishing it. However, in the absence of recent risk, early-risk minnows became neophobic, indicating that either their fear had been re-triggered by being moved to the novel environment or that their fear from early life had never waned. In offspring, we found a different pattern. Recent risk, combined with the early-life risk of their parents, caused minnows to show amplified baseline fear, revealing a trans-generational effect of exposure to a high-risk environment.
Title: Behavioural Responses to Diluted Bitumen in Wood Frog Tadpoles
​
Authors: Daniel Denton, Sam Patterson, Diane Orihel, Jules Blais, Mark Hansen, Jose Rodriguez Gil, Bruce Hollebone, and Caleb Hasler
​
Abstract: The study of behaviour in an ecotoxicology context allows for a broader understanding of the effects of pollution in an ecosystem. Amphibians in aquatic ecosystems are vulnerable to contaminant exposure, especially during early life stages when they are contained within a waterbody. In Canada, a recent issue has been pipeline development, and there is potential for diluted bitumen to spill into aquatic ecosystems where sensitive amphibian populations live. Thus, there is a need for a field study of the potential behavioural effects of diluted bitumen on amphibian tadpoles in freshwater. The wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) is an ideal model to demonstrate potential contamination effects on amphibians, due to its broad geographic and ecological range. As part of the Boreal lake Oil Release Experiment by Additions of Limnocorrals (BOREAL) experiment, diluted bitumen of varying concentrations was added to lake mesocosms at the Experimental Lakes Area. Water from these mesocosms was used to raise wood frog tadpoles in separate microcosm enclosures. Behavioural assays were performed using video recordings of groups of tadpoles within arenas. Space use, sociality, and activity have been observed through video analysis for individuals across a gradient of diluted bitumen infused lake water.
Title: Early interpretation of community composition leads to cognitive bias of predation risk in a larval amphibian
​
Authors: Gabrielle H. Achtymichuk, Douglas P. Chivers, Hunter E.F. Stevens, Stephen Pecylak, and Maud C.O. Ferrari
​
Abstract: The vast majority of species can learn to identify predators and non-predators, a skill crucial to their survival. Yet, when faced with altered environmental conditions, it becomes obvious that many are unable to cope with novel predator invaders, while others even maintain fearful responses towards harmless species. To understand why some species thrive while others do not in the face of environmental change, we investigated the existence of factors that could limit their cognitive plasticity – an individual’s ability to change the cues used to make decisions. One such factor is the development of cognitive biases – a deviation or error in thinking based on one’s subjective interpretation of reality, which will affect one’s decision making. Using woodfrogs, Lithobates sylvaticus, we tested whether early community composition (i.e., living in an environment containing at least 4 non-threatening species, 1 non-threatening species or a neutral environment) and the ontogeny of that experience (i.e., the information about the community was learned either as an embryo or later on as a larvae) would subsequently affect the responses of tadpoles to cues related to predation risk. We found that early positive (i.e., non-threatening) community experience created a cognitive bias in woodfrog tadpoles, which led them to underestimate risk-related cues later in life. This safety bias prevented adaptive behavioural responses to novel predators, and this impact was more pronounced when the community experience occurred as embryos. This study highlights the role of early life experience in shaping an individual’s ability to respond to environmental change.
Title: Optimization of a multiple-species slave workforce relative to host microhabitat optima by the slave-making ant Temnothorax americanus (Emery) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
​
Authors: N.C. Novotny, and J.F. Hare
​
Abstract: Slave-making ants raid nests of nearby host colonies, abscond with their brood, and raise slave workers that perform all the colony’s domestic tasks. Ants, like other eusocial insects, are characterized by division of labour, including divisions of workers into sub-castes, which increases colony efficiency. In Canadian populations, T. americanus enslaves two host species, T. ambiguus and T. longispinosus, which can occur in the same slave-maker colony simultaneously. Workers of these host species may, in effect, act as different sub-castes, specializing in certain tasks or performing optimally in different contexts. Unenslaved T. ambiguus colonies are found in warm microhabitats while T. longispinosus colonies are prevalent in cooler microhabitats, presumably achieving optimal performance in species-typical microhabitat. Slave-makers may capitalize on species-specific optima of their host species by matching their slave workforce to the environmental conditions they experience. We acclimatized T. americanus colonies collected from field populations in the Halton, ON region to temperatures of 25°C and 15°C in environment chambers. We then offered scouting workers a simultaneous choice of pupae of their two host species derived from unenslaved colonies to determine if host species retrieval preference is affected by temperature. We also censused the demographic composition of the slave-maker colonies and tested for any effect of slave-maker colony composition on retrieval preference. There was no effect of temperature or existing slave-maker colony composition on pupal retrieval preference, suggesting that host-species worker pupae are retrieved without preference. Further investigation involving staged slave raids, however, are necessary to robustly test for slave workforce optimization.