Physico-chemical and computational studies of bacterial carbohydrates

This MSc thesis is composed of two investigations: the structure of the capsular polysaccharide expressed on the surface of Clostridium perfringens strain 1395 and the Clostridium bolteae capsular polysaccharide conformation by molecular modelling. The majority of gas gangrene development is due to Clostridium perfringens. Clostridium bolteae was found present in the intestinal tract of children diagnosed with autism and not present in the control group. Developing a vaccine by targeting the capsular polysaccharide of virulent strains will help prevent the development of these detrimental infections. However, in order to produce a vaccine, the structure of the capsular polysaccharide must first be determined. The Clostridium perfringens capsular polysaccharide has yet to be fully characterized but has been found thus far to be an oligosaccharide repeat unit containing →4)-β-D-Glc-(1→3)-D-Gal(1→, →2)-[β-D-Glc-(1→3)]-α-D-Gal-(1→, →4)-α-D-GalNAc-(1→ and →3)-[β-D-Glc-(1→2)]-β-D-Man-(1→. The conformation of the Clostridium bolteae polysaccharide was found to be a right-handed seven-unit repeating helix.URL: https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/handle/10214/886