Department of Infectious Diseases, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America.
PLoS Pathog. 2012;8(7):e1002788. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002788. Epub 2012 Jul 12.
Small noncoding RNAs (sRNAs) play important roles in gene regulation in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Thus far, no sRNA has been assigned a definitive role in virulence in the major human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae. Based on the potential coding capacity of intergenic regions, we hypothesized that the pneumococcus produces many sRNAs and that they would play an important role in pathogenesis. We describe the application of whole-genome transcriptional sequencing to systematically identify the sRNAs of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Using this approach, we have identified 89 putative sRNAs, 56 of which are newly identified. Furthermore, using targeted genetic approaches and Tn-seq transposon screening, we demonstrate that many of the identified sRNAs have important global and niche-specific roles in virulence. These data constitute the most comprehensive analysis of pneumococcal sRNAs and provide the first evidence of the extensive roles of sRNAs in pneumococcal pathogenesis.
小非编码 RNA（sRNA）在原核生物和真核生物的基因调控中发挥着重要作用。迄今为止，尚未有 sRNA 被确定在主要人类病原体肺炎链球菌的毒力中发挥作用。基于基因间区的潜在编码能力，我们假设肺炎球菌产生许多 sRNA，它们将在发病机制中发挥重要作用。我们描述了全基因组转录测序在系统性鉴定肺炎链球菌 sRNA 中的应用。使用这种方法，我们已经鉴定出 89 个推定的 sRNA，其中 56 个是新鉴定的。此外，通过靶向遗传方法和 Tn-seq 转座子筛选，我们证明了许多鉴定出的 sRNA 在毒力方面具有重要的全局和特定小生境作用。这些数据构成了对肺炎球菌 sRNA 的最全面分析，并首次提供了 sRNA 在肺炎球菌发病机制中广泛作用的证据。
