SRNA and cis-antisense sRNA identification in Staphylococcus aureus highlights an unusual sRNA gene cluster with one encoding a secreted peptide.

ABSTRACT: The human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus expresses a set of transcriptional factors and small RNAs (sRNAs) to adapt to environmental variations. Recent harmonization of staphylococcal sRNA data allowed us to search for novel sRNAs using DETR'PROK, a computational pipeline for identifying sRNA in prokaryotes. We performed RNA-Seq on Newman strain and identified a set of 48 sRNA candidates. To avoid bioinformatic artefacts, we applied a series of cut-offs and tested experimentally each selected intergenic region. This narrowed the field to 24 expressed sRNAs, of which 21 were new and designated with Srn identifiers. Further examination of these loci revealed that one exhibited an unusual condensed sRNA cluster of about 650 nucleotides. We determined the transcriptional start sites within thi

SUBMITTER: Bronsard J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5496865 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature