Escherichia coli cell division inhibitor DicF-RNA of the dicB operon. Evidence for its generation in vivo by transcription termination and by RNase III and RNase E-dependent processing.
We have established that the long non-coding intercistronic region of the dicB operon of Escherichia coli expresses a trans-acting division inhibitor specified by a region dicF, at most 65 nucleotides-long. The present study deals with the processing of dicBF operon mRNA in vivo, and identifies the dicF gene product as a 53 nucleotide RNA species. A sequence at the end of DicF resembles, and behaves as, a Rho-independent terminator, but further processing of readthrough transcripts, presumably by RNase III, followed by a limited 3' to 5' degradation, appears to generate additional DicF-RNA 3' ends. For the 5' end of DicF-RNA, our results show that a 190 nucleotide precursor DicF-RNA species is formed by cleavage at an RNase III site, while the 53 nucleotide minimal DicF-RNA is generated by further processing requiring the presence of an active form of RNase E in vivo. These data indicate that an untranslated product derived from an operon RNA can have a regulatory activity by affecting cell division.
Faubladier
M
M
Centre de Recherches de Biochimie et de Génétique Cellulaires du CNRS Toulouse, France.
Cam
K
K
Bouché
J P
JP
D001483:Base Sequence; D002455:Cell Division; D004722:Endoribonucleases / Q000378:metabolism*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics*; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D007438:Introns; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D009876:Operon; D012323:RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional; D012329:RNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D043244:Ribonuclease III; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D012329:RNA, Bacterial; D004722:Endoribonucleases; D043244:Ribonuclease III; C468366:ribonuclease III, E coli; C022537:ribonuclease E