Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Armand-Frappier Santé Biotechnologie, Laval, QC H7V 1B7, Canada.
Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Apr 18;23(8):4448. doi: 10.3390/ijms23084448.
Small RNAs (sRNAs) are essential regulators in the adaptation of bacteria to environmental changes and act by binding targeted mRNAs through base complementarity. Approximately 550 distinct families of sRNAs have been identified since their initial characterization in the 1980s, accelerated by the emergence of RNA-sequencing. Small RNAs are found in a wide range of bacterial phyla, but they are more prominent in highly researched model organisms compared to the rest of the sequenced bacteria. Indeed, and contain the highest number of sRNAs, with 98 and 118, respectively, with encoding 145 distinct sRNAs, while other bacteria families have only seven sRNAs on average. Although the past years brought major advances in research on sRNAs, we have perhaps only scratched the surface, even more so considering RNA annotations trail behind gene annotations. A distinctive trend can be observed for genes, whereby their number increases with genome size, but this is not observable for RNAs, although they would be expected to follow the same trend. In this perspective, we aimed at establishing a more accurate representation of the occurrence of sRNAs in bacteria, emphasizing the potential for novel sRNA discoveries.
小 RNA（sRNA）是细菌适应环境变化的重要调节因子，通过碱基互补配对与靶标 mRNA 结合发挥作用。自 20 世纪 80 年代首次被描述以来，随着 RNA 测序的出现，已经鉴定出大约 550 种不同家族的 sRNA。sRNA 广泛存在于细菌门中，但与测序的其他细菌相比，在高度研究的模式生物中更为突出。事实上， 和 包含最多数量的 sRNA，分别为 98 和 118 个， 编码 145 个不同的 sRNA，而其他细菌家族平均只有 7 个 sRNA。尽管过去几年在 sRNA 研究方面取得了重大进展，但我们可能只是触及了表面，尤其是考虑到 RNA 注释落后于基因注释。可以观察到一个独特的趋势，即基因数量随基因组大小的增加而增加，但 RNA 则没有这种趋势，尽管它们应该遵循相同的趋势。在这个角度下，我们旨在更准确地描述 sRNA 在细菌中的出现情况，强调新的 sRNA 发现的潜力。
