Master Degree / Yüksek Lisans Tezleri
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/3008
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Master Thesis Mining the Toxoplasma Gondii Genome for Microrna Regulatory Patterns(Izmir Institute of Technology, 2017) Acar, İlhan Erkin; Allmer, JensToxoplasma gondii is a parasite that causes mental retardation, blindness or nearblindness, and decreased psycho-motor performance if the patient is congenitally infected. There have been efforts to vaccinate humans against this parasite, yet it was not achieved. Therefore, a better understanding of Toxoplasma gondii can be provided by examining its microRNA regulation. MicroRNAs are known to regulate messenger RNAs and prevent translation. This results in different effects in different biological pathways. In this study, the Toxoplasma gondii genome was used to predict precursor and mature microRNAs, while experimentally validated microRNAs were taken into consideration. This was further explored in terms of microRNA targeting, with the known genes of Toxoplasma gondii. Furthermore, RNA Sequencing data of this organism was obtained and analysed in terms of gene expression and possible microRNA expression outcomes. Combining gene expression analyses with targeting predictions, it was possible to create a microRNA - gene interaction network. Gene expression analyses showed that there was no differentially expressed genes, microRNAs or interactions between two developmental stages of Toxoplasma gondii, tachyzoite and bradyzoite. This result was added to interactions to determine up and down regulations. Then, all of these interactions were connected where they intersect, to create a regulation network of microRNAs. This network was further explored and compared to random networks of the same size. It was seen that the biological network contains many larger sized cliques. This knowledge can be further analysed in future work, to create drug leads that will target vital pathways of Toxoplasma gondii.Master Thesis Systematic Computational Analysis of Potential Rna Interference Regulation in Toxoplasma Gondii(Izmir Institute of Technology, 2009) Çakır, Mehmet Volkan; Allmer, JensRNA-mediated silencing was first described in plants and became famous by studies in Caenorhabditis elegans. RNA interference (RNAi) is the mechanism through which an RNA interferes with the production of other RNAs in a sequence specific manner. MiRNAs are a type of RNA which originate from the genome with their active form being ss-RNAs of 21-23 nucleotides in length. They are being transcribed as primiRNAs then processed in the nucleus by Drosha to pre-miRNAs with a stem-loop structure and 70 nucleotides in length. This stem-loop containing pre-miRNAs is then processed in the cytoplasm to ds-RNA one strand of which will serve as interfering RNA. Toxoplasma gondii is a species of parasitic protozoa which causes several diseases. T.gondii emerges as a good candidate for computational efforts with its small genome size, publicly available genome files and extensive information about its gene structure, either based on experimental data or the prediction with several gene finders in parallel. Therefore, it seems important to establish the regulatory network composed of RNAi which may be beneficial for the Toxoplasma community. Within this context the pool of possible stem-loop constitutive transcripts are produced, further analysis of this pool for desired 2D structure is integrated and mapping of possible RNAi regulation to T.gondii.s genome is established. In connection with computational assessment and mapping, the derived information is provided as a database for quick lookup using a convenient web interface for experimental studies of RNAi regulation in Toxoplasma, thus reduce time and money costs in such studies.