Let $G$ be a simple connected graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges and $d_{1}\geq d_{2}\geq \cdots \geq d_{n}>0$ its sequence of vertex degrees. If $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{1}\geq \unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{2}\geq \cdots \geq \unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{n-1}>\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{n}=0$ are the Laplacian eigenvalues of $G$, then the Kirchhoff index of $G$ is $\mathit{Kf}(G)=n\sum _{i=1}^{n-1}\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{i}^{-1}$. We prove some new lower bounds for $\mathit{Kf}(G)$ in terms of some of the parameters $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}=d_{1}$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}_{2}=d_{2}$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}_{3}=d_{3}$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}=d_{n}$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}_{2}=d_{n-1}$ and the topological index $\mathit{NK}=\prod _{i=1}^{n}d_{i}$.

Given a connected regular graph $G$, let $l(G)$ be its line graph, $s(G)$ its subdivision graph, $r(G)$ the graph obtained from $G$ by adding a new vertex corresponding to each edge of $G$ and joining each new vertex to the end vertices of the corresponding edge and $q(G)$ the graph obtained from $G$ by inserting a new vertex into every edge of $G$ and new edges joining the pairs of new vertices which lie on adjacent edges of $G$. A formula for the normalised Laplacian characteristic polynomial of $l(G)$ (respectively $s(G),r(G)$ and $q(G)$) in terms of the normalised Laplacian characteristic polynomial of $G$ and the number of vertices and edges of $G$ is developed and used to give a sharp lower bound for the degree-Kirchhoff index and a formula for the number of spanning trees of $l(G)$ (respectively $s(G),r(G)$ and $q(G)$).