Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Biological Sciences

Sub-Department

College of Arts and Sciences

First Advisor

Bert Ely

Abstract

Several Caulobacter bacterial genomes have been recently sequenced, and all of the genomes contained one or more clusters of genes with phage origins. This observation indicates that bacteriophages contribute to the Caulobacter gene pool, so in order to understand bacteria genomes we will need to understand phage genomes as well. As part of understanding the phage genomes, we want to isolate novel bacteriophages and study their genomics. This study resulted in the isolation of 12 new phages, including four that differ from the well-studied CbKlike phages. Two of these novel phages are Podoviruses with icosahedral heads and small tails, and one of these designated Lullwater, is similar to two previously isolated Caulobacter phages, Cd1 and Percy. They have a similar genome size around 45 kb and approximately 30 genes that are present in a conserved gene order. They also contain a T7like virus DNA polymerase, which classifies them as T7like Podoviruses. Based on these similarities, we concluded that Cd1, Lullwater and Percy comprise new Cd1like group in the T7like virus family.

Rights

© 2017, Doreen Nguyen

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