Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Mol Microbiol. 2011 Sep;81(5):1129-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2011.07780.x. Epub 2011 Aug 4.
The bacterial small RNA GcvB has been known as a translational repressor of mRNAs encoding amino acid transporters and has been postulated to limit uptake of unnecessary amino acids under nutrient-rich conditions. In this issue of Molecular Microbiology, Sharma et al. (2011) provide evidence for a much broader role for GcvB as a global regulator of amino acid metabolism. Using a unique combination of experimental and biocomputational approaches, the authors triple the size of the GcvB regulon, making it the largest sRNA regulon defined to date.
细菌小分子 RNA GcvB 作为一种翻译抑制物，已被证实能够抑制编码氨基酸转运蛋白的 mRNA 的翻译，这一机制被认为可以在营养丰富的条件下限制非必需氨基酸的摄取。在本期的《分子微生物学》中，Sharma 等人（2011）提供了证据，证明 GcvB 作为一种全局调节因子在氨基酸代谢中发挥了更为广泛的作用。通过将实验和生物计算方法相结合，作者扩大了 GcvB 的调控范围，使其成为迄今为止定义的最大的 sRNA 调控范围。
