Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, August 1997. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Christine E. Schmidt. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Karl E. Wommack, Dept. of Plant & Soil Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2007. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mark Young. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-239).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2006. / Title from PDF of title page. Document formatted into pages; contains 90 pages. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Idaho, April 2006. / Major professor: Holly A. Wichman. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online in PDF format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The development of new and effective vaccines and immunodiagnostic reagents requires the characterisation of antigenically relevant proteins and their interactions with the products of the immune system. Phage display technology was investigated as a means of elucidating some of the antigenic properties of the rickettsial parasite, Cowdria ruminantium (Cowdria). Randomly fragmented gene-derived libraries have been useful in elucidating viral and other epitopes, but only limited work has been done with entire genomes. A phage display library expressing a repertoire of Cowdria peptides was constructed. It was sufficiently large to represent the organism's genome, but lacked phages displaying peptides coded for by genes containing a Pvu II restriction enzyme site, including the one coding for the major antigenic protein 1 (MAP1). This was considered advantageous since MAP1 is immunodominant and has already been well characterised. Affinity selection with antibodies against Cowdria proteins other than MAP1 allowed several antibody-reactive peptides to be isolated. These selected sequences were placed in the context of the genome by screening a lambda bacteriophage library and by comparison with Cowdria DNA sequences. Apart from showing that antigenic mimics were present in the phage display library, six open reading frames encoding putative Cowdria proteins were identified. All had similarities to, or motifs in common with, membrane proteins and are thus likely to be exposed to the host's humoral immune system. Some of the proteins identified were larger than the antigens used to elicit the antibodies used for selection, probably as a result of the presence of cross-reactive epitopes. Despite limitations experienced when extending a fragmented-gene approach for epitope location to genomes, it was possible to identify an antigenic region on MAP1 by comparison with selected mimics. In addition, binding peptide sequences were identified with two monoclonal antibodies that had been raised against non-Cowdria antigens. An epitope on the VP7 protein of bluetongue virus was identified and peptides were found that reacted with a monoclonal antibody directed against malignant catarrhal fever virus. Thus, apart from being able to identify several potentially important Cowdria epitopes and genes, the fragmented-genome library holds promise as a universal reagent for identifying useful mimics.

A study was conducted to find the effect of magnesium, calcium, manganese and zinc ions on the infection of Psudomonas aeruginosa strain 1C by RNA bacteriophage 7s. When an 18 hour progeny experiment was performed, it was found that magnesium, calcium and manganese had different effects on bacteriophage production and was dependent on the bacterial growth conditions. RNA bacteriophage 7s progeny production was significantly enhanced by the addition of magnesium to cultures of Psudomonas aeruginosa 1C grown in a magnesium deficient medium. Under these environmental conditions there was a slight increase in progeny in the presence of calcium. When Psudomonas aeruginosa 1c was grown in a complete medium, the infection of cells by bacteriophage 7s was enhanced by magnesium and calcium but not manganese or zinc, as demonstrated by the One Step Growth Curve.