Division of Mycobacterial Research, MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London, United Kingdom.
ETH Zurich, Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, Zurich, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2013 Dec 12;8(12):e80047. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080047. eCollection 2013.
Enhanced transcription of the Rv2660c locus in response to starvation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv encouraged addition of the predicted Rv2660c protein to an improved vaccine formulation. Using strand-specific RNA sequencing, we show that the up-regulated transcript is in fact a small RNA encoded on the opposite strand to the annotated Rv2660c. The transcript originates within a prophage and is expressed only in strains that carry PhiRv2. The small RNA contains both host and phage sequences and provides a useful biomarker to monitor bacterial starvation during infection and/or non-replicating persistence. Using different approaches we do not find any evidence of Rv2660c at the level of mRNA or protein. Further efforts to understand the mechanism by which Rv2660c improves efficacy of the H56 vaccine are likely to provide insights into the pathology and immunology of tuberculosis.
分枝杆菌饥饿时，Rv2660c 基因座转录增强，这促使人们将预测的 Rv2660c 蛋白添加到改良的疫苗配方中。我们使用链特异性 RNA 测序表明，上调的转录本实际上是一条位于注释的 Rv2660c 反义链上的小 RNA。该转录本起源于一个前噬菌体，仅在携带 PhiRv2 的菌株中表达。该小 RNA 含有宿主和噬菌体序列，可作为监测感染和/或非复制性持续存在期间细菌饥饿的有用生物标志物。我们使用不同的方法在 mRNA 或蛋白质水平上均未发现 Rv2660c 的任何证据。进一步研究 Rv2660c 提高 H56 疫苗效力的机制，可能有助于深入了解结核病的病理学和免疫学。
