Contamination of recreational and shellfish waters with fecal pollution is a major water quality issue with associated economic impacts and human health risks. Reliable fecal source identification and rapid, quantitative analyses are essential components of risk assessment. Enteric bacteria that are endemic to specific hosts have a potential role as...
Most pathogens gain access to their host through mucosal surfaces. It is therefore desirable to develop mucosal vaccines that elicit an immune response to prevent this crucial first step in infection. Current mucosal vaccines are live attenuated strains of pathogens. More recent efforts have focused on the use of recombinant...
In this thesis, we examined the effects of the exposures to anthropogenic pollutants on the fish, primarily juvenile chinook salmon, immune system using newly and recently developed immune assays. In addition, we developed a new assay for measuring immunocompetence of fish. In the first chapter, the Alamar Blue assay was...
This thesis describes an analysis of the structure/function relationship of the
phage infection protein (Pip) in Lactococcus lactis. Pip is a protein required for phage
infection of L. lactis exclusively by phage c2 species. Pip, which shares no significant
homology to previously studied proteins, contains 6 hydrophobic regions; one residing...
Crown gall disease is caused by the ubiquitous soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens which transfers a portion if DNA (T-DNA) into the plant cell. Preventing infection by using the biocontrol strain Agrobacterium radiobacter K84 is currently the only defense for crown gall. Two different resistance strategies were examined in this work....
There have been many studies that describe the protective degradation or metabolism of potentially harmful plant toxins, such as, mimosine from Leucaena leuconcephala, pyrrolizidine alkaloids from tansy ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), oxalate and some mycotoxins by rumen microbes. There are many cases of plant-related toxicoses suffered by ruminant animals where there...
Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular pathogens that cause several serious conditions within the human host. Many of the symptoms associated with infection are thought to stem from the development of aberrant, or persistent, chlamydiae. Factors leading to chlamydial persistence include deprivation of amino acids, the release of certain cellular factors, or...
The immune toxicity of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) has been studied for over 35 years, but only recently has the profound immune suppression associated with TCDD exposure been linked to induction of regulatory T cells (Tregs). The effects of TCDD are mediated through binding the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a ligand-activated transcription...