Description of morphological variants of Coxiella burnetii and identification of a 21 kDa lipoprotein : a dissertation /
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[College Station, Tex.] :
[Texas A&M University System Health Science Center],
[2003]
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| Subjects: |
| Abstract: | ABSTRACT : Coxiella burnetii is unique among bacterial pathogens because it resides in the acidified, late stage phagolysosome of cells from mammals, insects, birds. Virulence factors of C. burnetii are not well defined and little is known about how the organism adapts to life in the phagolysosome. The bacteria are morphologically heterogenous and vary in size from 0.3 to 1,200 um (10). The morphological variants' role in the organism's virulence and survival is not understood. The variants of C. burnetii may express outer membrane proteins that modify the phagolysosomal environment and aid in survival. Some of the outer membrane proteins may be specific to one morphological variant and could, in part, explain the differentiation of the variants as well as survival mechanisms employed by the bacteria. Using surface iodination, two variant specific proteins were identified, a 21kDa protein specific to the larger variants and 34kDa protein specific to the smaller variants. The 21 kDa protein, as well as a uniformly expressed 14 kDa protein were selected for characterization. The 14 kDa protein was identified as GroES, a heat shock protein, previously identified in C. burnetii (8). Unable to purify the radiolabeled 21 kDa protein, a 21 kDa protein expressed in a C. burnetii DNA library was selected for characterization. The predicted signal sequence of the clone encoding the 21 kDa protein homology to other bacterial lipoproteins in the bacterial databases. Specific sera raised against recombinant protein will allow for future testing of differential expression by transmission electron microscopy. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: Medical Sciences". "Submitted to the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences of The Texas A&M University System Health Science Center in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2003." Approved as to style and content by: James E. Samuel, David McMurrary, Vernon Tesh, Allison Ficht, John Quarles. |
| Physical Description: | x, 75 leaves, 21 leaves of plates : illustrations ; 28 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-74). |