Date of Award

5-1978

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Legacy Department

Microbiology

First Advisor

M. J. B. Payate

Second Advisor

Farrell B. Brown

Abstract

Single-burst experiments were performed on Bacillus subtilis infected with bacteriophage 29. Viruses were subjected to three doses of UV-irradiation (0, 84, and 750 ergs per mm^2) and then propagated in the host cells at various temperatures (37, 42, or 43.5 C). An average burst size under the control conditions was 135. The data were plotted as histograms so that the distributions of the phage yields could be compared. The Student t-test was applied to compare the burst size distributions for different extents of UV damage and variou growth conditions. The distributions of the burst sizes beame skewed as the conditions were varied. Elevated temperature decreased the burst size of UV-damaged viruses dramatically (71%), but caused a much smaller decrease in the undamage viruses (11%).

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