Roberts, Sabrina B. (2017) The roles of Correia Repeat Enclosed Elements in regulation of gene expression in the 'Neisseria' spp. (PhD thesis), Kingston University, .

Abstract

In February 2017, the World Health organization published a list of 12 antibiotic-resistant "priority pathogens" that pose the greatest threat to human health. Amongst these, in the high priority group was 'Neisseria gonorrhoea'. When considering 'N. meningitdis' the highest rates of incidence are seen in infants with peak seen in adolescents and the elderly in some countries. CREE have been indentified near virulence and metabolic genes as well being present in the pathogenic 'Neisseria' species. It was therefore seen as an interesting area to undertake gene expression research. To look at the transcriptome and effective method of RNA extraction needed to be considered. Experiments found that the Qiagen RNeasy kit was the most successful kit to extract RNA from cultures of 'N. gonorrhoeae' and 'N. meningitidis'. This research, in the assessment of the transcriptome, has demonstrated that the presence of CREE is associated with the presence on ncRNAs in the genome. CREE locations in the neisserial genomes are frequently found near or overlapping SIPHT predicted ncRNAs. The transcriptome has also shown that CREE can invert at its location with the potential to impact gene expression. Research set out in this thesis has set the ground work for some interesting areas to be taken up for further investigation.

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