Tombusvirus p19 Captures RNase III-Cleaved Double-Stranded RNAs Formed by Overlapping Sense and Antisense Transcripts in Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Antisense transcription is widespread in bacteria. By base pairing with overlapping sense RNAs, antisense RNAs (asRNA) can form double-stranded RNAs (dsRNA), which are cleaved by RNase III, a dsRNA endoribonuclease. The ectopic expression of plant Tombusvirus p19 in Escherichia coli stabilizes ∼21-nucleotide (nt) dsRNA RNase III decay intermediates, which enabled us to characterize otherwise highly unstable asRNA by deep sequencing of p19-captured dsRNA. RNase III-produced small dsRNA were formed at most bacterial genes in the bacterial genome and in a plasmid. We classified the types of asRNA in genomic clusters producing the most abundant p19-captured dsRNA and confirmed RNase III regulation of asRNA and sense RNA decay at three type I toxin-antitoxin loci and at a coding g

SUBMITTER: Huang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7373196 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature