BABESIA-BOVIS - MOLECULAR AND BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CLONED PARASITE LINES

Abstract

An in vivo limiting dilution technique was used to produce several Babesia bovis cloned lines with which to study the basis of virulence and immunogenicity in this parasite. DNA hybridization using a cloned DNA fragment from the BabR locus demonstrated that the cloned lines were a more restricted genetic population than the parent strain. Biosynthetic labeling and immunoprecipitation studies indicated that the cloned lines differed from each other and from the parentals in the expression of a small number of polypeptides and antigens. Animal trials with three of the lines demonstrated that the parental line contains both virulent and avirulent parasite populations, at least three of which ar..