Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis that primarily affects the lungs. The success of M. tuberculosis as a pathogen relies on tight regulation of gene expression related to growth, metabolism, and survival. One strategy the bacterium employs to achieve this is decreasing the rate of mRNA degradation, a process believed to be regulated by RNase E, the major catalytic and scaffolding element of the degradosome. Though thoroughly studied in E. coli, RNase E in M. tuberculosis remains relatively unexplored. In this research, we investigated the cleavage specificity of RNase E using three engineered variants of the enzyme, and collected evidence to suggest that cleavage sites mapped in vivo for the M. smegmatis rne 5’ UTR may be attributed to RNase E activity

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Davis, Alexa B.
• Dainis, Joseph P.

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-051820-004059

Advisor

• Shell, Scarlet
• Argüello, José M.
• Roberts, Louis Anthony

Year

• 2020

Date created

• 2020-05-18

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Interdisciplinary

Rights statement

• In Copyright