Lamar State College Orange congratulates Biology/Science Instructor, Dr. Matt McClure, on his recent research that was published in the Advances of Biological Chemistry Academic Journal.
The research, in partnership with Dr. Mark Merchant of McNeese State University, studied the immune responses of dragonfly larvae in Shangri La Botanical Gardens in Orange, TX.
“Aquatic insects are long regarded as indicators of environmental quality, and one of the ways that insects and other arthropods fight infection is by rapidly coating infectious agents with the dark pigment melanin, a process called melanization response,” Dr. McClure said.
“Mark Merchant and I obtained hemolymph (“blood”) from aquatic larvae of green darner dragonflies (Anax Junius) collected mostly from the wetland garden of Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center. Both melanization and phenoloxidase (the enzyme involved in the melanization pathway) were studied using hemolymph exposed to various temperatures and concentrations of E. coli bacteria, and results show that the melanization response was influenced by both temperature and bacterial concentration.
The data presented in this study provides a reference point for future studies on human-caused impacts on green darner dragonfly immune systems.”
The full article can be read here.
