Bacterial small RNA regulators: versatile roles and rapidly evolving variations

Small RNA regulators (sRNAs) have been identified in a wide range of bacteria and found to play critical regulatory roles in many processes. The major families of sRNAs include true antisense RNAs, synthesized from the strand complementary to the mRNA they regulate, sRNAs that also act by pairing bu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology 2011-12, Vol.3 (12), p.a003798-a003798
Main Authors: Gottesman, Susan, Storz, Gisela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bacteria
Bacteria - genetics
Base Pairing
Concept
Evolution, Molecular
RNA, Bacterial - chemistry
RNA, Bacterial - genetics
RNA, Bacterial - physiology
RNA, Small Untranslated - chemistry
RNA, Small Untranslated - genetics
RNA, Small Untranslated - physiology
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Summary:Small RNA regulators (sRNAs) have been identified in a wide range of bacteria and found to play critical regulatory roles in many processes. The major families of sRNAs include true antisense RNAs, synthesized from the strand complementary to the mRNA they regulate, sRNAs that also act by pairing but have limited complementarity with their targets, and sRNAs that regulate proteins by binding to and affecting protein activity. The sRNAs with limited complementarity are akin to eukaryotic microRNAs in their ability to modulate the activity and stability of multiple mRNAs. In many bacterial species, the RNA chaperone Hfq is required to promote pairing between these sRNAs and their target mRNAs. Understanding the evolution of regulatory sRNAs remains a challenge; sRNA genes show evidence of duplication and horizontal transfer but also could be evolved from tRNAs, mRNAs or random transcription.
ISSN:1943-0264
1943-0264
DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a003798