Abstract
The decay of Bacillus subtilis aprE leader-lacZ mRNA was examined in Escherichia coli wild-type and in mutants deficient in RNase E, RNase G, or both. Two versions of the mRNA were studied: the wild-type mRNA, which has a stem-loop at the 5′ end, and a mutant mRNA, with a single-stranded 5′ end. The half-life of both transcripts was determined by RNase E, the half-life of the mutant transcript being one-third of that of the wild-type transcript. RNase G cleaved both transcripts at a site within an AU-rich sequence in the stem-loop region, but cleavage was much more efficient when the stem-loop was destabilized. RNase E cleaved at the same site, but less efficiently and only in the mutant transcript.
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Acknowledgements
This project was supported by grants from the Emil and Wera Cornell Foundation. We thank Eliane Hajnsdorf for the RNase mutants and Lars Rutberg for critically reading the manuscript.
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Hambraeus, G., Rutberg, B. Escherichia coli RNase E and RNase G cleave a Bacillus subtilis transcript at the same site in a structure-dependent manner. Arch Microbiol 181, 137–143 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-003-0637-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-003-0637-1