Nakamura Takahiro, Naito Kumiko, Yokota Naoto, Sugita Chieko, Sugita Mamoru
Center for Gene Research, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.
Plant Cell Physiol. 2007 Sep;48(9):1309-18. doi: 10.1093/pcp/pcm098. Epub 2007 Jul 29.
Small, regulatory, non-coding RNA (ncRNA) is involved in various cell functions in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. However, information on ncRNA in cyanobacteria is still scarce. We studied ncRNA genes by computational screening to compare the intergenic regions of the Synechococcus elongatus PCC 6301 genome with the genomes of three freshwater cyanobacteria. We identified an ncRNA gene in S. elongatus, which has been previously described as yfr1 in marine cyanobacteria. The S. elongatus yfr1 gene is 65 nucleotides long and is positioned between guaB and trxA. We found a high conservation of the yfr1 gene in most cyanobacterial lineages. A yfr1-deficient mutant showed reduced growth under various stress conditions, e.g. oxidative stress and high salt stress conditions, and showed unusual accumulation of sbtA mRNA. A gel shift assay demonstrated interaction of the Yfr1 RNA with sbtA mRNA in vitro. This suggests that the sbtA transcript is a target RNA for the Yfr1 RNA.
小型调控性非编码RNA（ncRNA）参与原核生物和真核生物的多种细胞功能。然而，关于蓝藻中ncRNA的信息仍然匮乏。我们通过计算筛选研究了ncRNA基因，以比较聚球藻PCC 6301基因组与三种淡水蓝藻基因组的基因间隔区。我们在聚球藻中鉴定出一个ncRNA基因，该基因在海洋蓝藻中先前被描述为yfr1。聚球藻yfr1基因长65个核苷酸，位于guaB和trxA之间。我们发现yfr1基因在大多数蓝藻谱系中具有高度保守性。一个yfr1缺陷型突变体在各种胁迫条件下，如氧化胁迫和高盐胁迫条件下，生长减缓，并显示出sbtA mRNA的异常积累。凝胶迁移试验证明Yfr1 RNA在体外与sbtA mRNA相互作用。这表明sbtA转录本是Yfr1 RNA的靶标RNA。
