Access to My Ph.D. Thesis on Apoptosis
All about the discovery and characterization of the elusive alpha-fetoprotein receptor including its role in blocking apoptosis of macrophage-like cells.
Sequential blebbing during HL-60 (promyelocytic leukemia cell line) apoptosis induced by adherence to plastic.
Here is the link to my Ph.D thesis concerning the discovery and characterization of the 67 kD alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) receptor (1991) with the two monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to the AFPr.
https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/6f548eb6-49a2-456c-b472-41f68976077f
For my Ph.D. thesis I had focused on the issue of how AFP and the AFP receptor MAbs blocked cell death in macrophages. At that time hardly anyone knew anything about cell death induction.
Two monoclonal IgM antibodies (MAb) that I made to the 67 kD alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) receptor-binding protein (AFPr/BP) called 167H.1 and 167H.4 recognized different AFP receptor isoforms that contained different glycans. Interestingly, the 167H.4 MAb appeared to detect cells not susceptible to programmed cell death but the 167H.1 detected cells programmed for cell death. In the above example on a monocyte-like human cell line, HL-60, exposure of the cells to UCHL-1 (anti-CD45RO) induced cell death which was reversed by the purified 167H.1 MAb but not the purified control IgM MAb nor the AFPr/BP 167H.4 MAb. However, both MAbs to the AFPr/BP otherwise displayed equivalent AFP agonist activity.
Important work. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your dissertation is an important reminder of two things:
1) The manner in which ethical science is conducted, with original data accessible.
2) A depiction of the state of analytical chemistry in the late 1980's. 30 years later the analytical tools for protein identification and sequencing, plus computational chemistry would have given us coloured 3-dimensional pictures of all of the proteins. For extra marks, the interactions of the receptor binding domains!