Journal
WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-RNA
Volume 7, Issue 3, Pages 382-398Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/wrna.1341
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
- Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC CGS-D)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The coexistence of transposons with their hosts depends largely on transposition levels being tightly regulated to limit the mutagenic burden associated with frequent transposition. For DNA-based' (class II) bacterial transposons there is growing evidence that regulation through small noncoding RNAs and/or the RNA-binding protein Hfq are prominent mechanisms of defense against transposition. Recent transcriptomics analyses have identified many new cases of antisense RNAs (asRNA) that potentially could regulate the expression of transposon-encoded genes giving the impression that asRNA regulation of DNA-based transposons is much more frequent than previously thought. Hfq is a highly conserved bacterial protein that plays a central role in posttranscriptional gene regulation and stress response pathways in many bacteria. Three different mechanisms for Hfq-directed control of bacterial transposons have been identified to date highlighting the versatility of this protein as a regulator of bacterial transposons. There is also evidence emerging that some DNA-based transposons encode RNAs that could regulate expression of host genes. In the case of IS200, which appears to have lost its ability to transpose, contributing a regulatory RNA to its host could account for the persistence of this mobile element in a wide range of bacterial species. It remains to be seen how prevalent these transposon-encoded RNA regulators are, but given the relatively large amount of intragenic transcription in bacterial genomes, it would not be surprising if new examples are forthcoming. WIREs RNA 2016, 7:382-398. doi: 10.1002/wrna.1341 For further resources related to this article, please visit the .
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available