title: A novel family of plasmid-transferred anti-sense ncRNAs.
abstract: The genome of Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria encodes a constitutively expressed small RNA, which we designate PtaRNA1, "Plasmid transferred anti-sense RNA". It exhibits all hallmarks of a novel RNA antitoxin that proliferates by frequent horizontal transfer. It shows an erratic phylogenetic distribution with occurrences on chromosomes in a few individual strains distributed across both beta- and gamma-proteobacteria. Moreover, a homologous gene located on plasmid pMATVIM-7 of Pseudomonas aeruginosa is found. All ptaRNA1 homologs are located anti-sense to a putative toxin, which in turn is never encountered without the small RNA. The secondary structure of PtaRNA1, furthermore, is very similar to that of the FinP anti-sense RNA found on F-like plasmids in Escherichia coli.
authors.affiliation: BioinformaticsGroup, Department of Computer Science, and InterdisciplinaryCenter for Bioinformatics, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. sven@bioinf.uni-leipzig.de
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Findeiss
authors.forename: Cornelius
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmidtke
authors.forename: Peter F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Stadler
authors.forename: Ulla
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Bonas
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010802:Phylogeny; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics*; D016372:RNA, Antisense / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D012341:RNA, Ribosomal, 5S / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D022661:RNA, Untranslated / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D016959:Xanthomonas campestris / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development
chemical_list: D016372:RNA, Antisense; D012341:RNA, Ribosomal, 5S; D022661:RNA, Untranslated