Regulation and Functions of RNA Exonucleases in Bacteria

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Microbiology and Immunology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 3190

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università Degli Studi Di Milano, Milano, Italy
Interests: molecular microbiology and genetics of microorganisms, regulation of gene expression

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

RNA endo- and exonucleases (collectively referred to as ribonucleases, RNases) play fundamental roles in all kinds of cells. Indeed, they modulate the intracellular concentration of different RNA transcripts, thus contributing to gene expression regulation. Moreover, they provide the cells with mature and functional RNA molecules and contribute to recycling nucleotides.

The aim of this Special Issue is to advance the knowledge of hydrolytic and phosphorolytic exoribonucleases (exoRNases) of bacteria by collecting research articles, short communications, and reviews about their regulation and function. Extensive studies performed in the last four decades have allowed us to understand the fundamental aspects of the function of these enzymes, of their interaction with other cellular factors, and of the processes in which they are involved. However, important questions remain about the regulation of the expression of exoRNase-encoding genes and of the intracellular localization of exoRNases. Unclear are also the rules and mechanisms governing their specificity and activity so that they can extensively digest some RNAs and process others by accurately removing precise RNA portions. Moreover, RNA processing and degradation have mainly been studied in a few model species. It would be important to enlarge the analysis to other bacteria to get a more comprehensive understanding of the conservation and divergence of these processes in the branches of the bacterial phylogenetic tree.

Dr. Federica Briani
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • RNase
  • PNPase
  • RNA degradation
  • RNA processing
  • RNA degradosome

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 1933 KiB  
Article
Different csrA Expression Levels in C versus K-12 E. coli Strains Affect Biofilm Formation and Impact the Regulatory Mechanism Presided by the CsrB and CsrC Small RNAs
by Thomas Carzaniga, Federica A. Falchi, Francesca Forti, Davide Antoniani, Paolo Landini and Federica Briani
Microorganisms 2021, 9(5), 1010; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9051010 - 7 May 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2726
Abstract
Escherichia coli C is a strong biofilm producer in comparison to E. coli K-12 laboratory strains due to higher expression of the pgaABCD operon encoding the enzymes for the biosynthesis of the extracellular polysaccharide poly-β-1,6-N-acetylglucosamine (PNAG). The pgaABCD operon is negatively [...] Read more.
Escherichia coli C is a strong biofilm producer in comparison to E. coli K-12 laboratory strains due to higher expression of the pgaABCD operon encoding the enzymes for the biosynthesis of the extracellular polysaccharide poly-β-1,6-N-acetylglucosamine (PNAG). The pgaABCD operon is negatively regulated at the post-transcriptional level by two factors, namely CsrA, a conserved RNA-binding protein controlling multiple pathways, and the RNA exonuclease polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase). In this work, we investigated the molecular bases of different PNAG production in C-1a and MG1655 strains taken as representative of E. coli C and K-12 strains, respectively. We found that pgaABCD operon expression is significantly lower in MG1655 than in C-1a; consistently, CsrA protein levels were much higher in MG1655. In contrast, we show that the negative effect exerted by PNPase on pgaABCD expression is much stronger in C-1a than in MG1655. The amount of CsrA and of the small RNAs CsrB, CsrC, and McaS sRNAs regulating CsrA activity is dramatically different in the two strains, whereas PNPase level is similar. Finally, the compensatory regulation acting between CsrB and CsrC in MG1655 does not occur in E. coli C. Our results suggest that PNPase preserves CsrA-dependent regulation by indirectly modulating csrA expression. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Regulation and Functions of RNA Exonucleases in Bacteria)
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