ACKNOWLEDGMENT S

     I would like to thank my mentor and guide over the years, Dr. Thomas Bobik; his love of science and dedication were an inspiration to me in times of difficulty.

     Special thanks go to Dr. Henry Aldrich and the members of the electron

microscopy lab, Donna Williams and Lorraine McDowell, all of whom taught me the ins and outs of electron microscopy and endured my constant barrage of questions.

     I would like to thank the rest of my committee: Dr. K.T. Shanmugam, whose genetics lab first turned me on to the interesting and challenging field of bacterial genetics; Dr. Madeline Rasche, whose advice greatly facilitated my work and whose enthusiasm for science is contagious; and Dr. Paul Gulig, whose knowledge of replacement vectors made mutant construction a less difficult task.

     I would like to acknowledge Tetsuo Toraya for providing the anti-diol dehydratase antiserum, which was crucial for western blots and immunolabeling.

     I am grateful to the personnel of the Protein Chemistry Core at the University of Florida, Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research who performed the 2DPAGE separations, the N-terminal sequencing, and the MALDI-TOF analysis. Specifically I would like to thank Marjorie Chow, Charity Hartmann, Alexia Lunberg, Scott McMillen, Scott McClung, and Li Zhang who all performed a portion of the work.

     My thanks also go to Nicole Leal, Celeste Johnson, and Angel Sampson. Nicole

provided the anti-PduP antiserum and performed propionaldehyde dehydrogenase assays, Celeste provided the anti-PduO antiserum and performed adenosyltransferase assays, and