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Natural Antisense Transcripts in Bacteria

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Regulatory RNAs in Prokaryotes

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on special types of transcripts, those which originate from the complementary strand of an mRNA or functional RNA. As a consequence, these RNA molecules are, partially or to the extent of their full length, complementary to their target. Antisense transcripts are also called cis-antisense RNAs to differentiate them from trans-acting non-coding RNAs, which frequently act on their targets through short regions of complementarity and therefore are sometimes also referred to as antisense RNAs. The promoter and the first transcribed nucleotides of a noncoding RNA may also be located within an intergenic spacer and only later extend into the region of complementarity to another transcript. Antisense transcription sometimes results from read-through of protein-coding genes over a long distance, as observed for the antisense RNA to the ferric uptake regulator furA in Anabaena PCC7120. This gene is overlapped along its full length by the extremely long 3′ UTR of gene alr 1690 (Hernandez et al. 2005). Last but not least, a perfectly complementary antisense RNA may have additional targets in trans. All these cases are considered here as antisense RNAs, as long as there is a sense transcript expressed from the opposite strand of DNA.

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  1. Institute of Biology 3, Genetics & Experimental Bioinformatics, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Schänzlestr. 1, D-79104, Freiburg, Germany

    Wolfgang R. Hess

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Georg, J., Hess, W.R. (2012). Natural Antisense Transcripts in Bacteria. In: Regulatory RNAs in Prokaryotes. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0218-3_5

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