TraJ-II RNA motif

Last updated
traJ-II RNA
TraJ-II-RNA.svg
Consensus secondary structure of traJ-II RNAs
Identifiers
SymboltraJ-II
Rfam RF01760
Other data
RNA typeCis-regulatory element
Domain(s) Pseudomonadota
PDB structures PDBe

The traJ-II RNA motif is a conserved RNA structure discovered in bacteria by using bioinformatics. [1] traJ-II RNAs appear to be in the 5' untranslated regions of protein-coding genes called traJ, which functions in the process of bacterial conjugation. A previously identified motif known as TraJ 5' UTR is also found upstream of traJ genes functions as the target of FinP antisense RNAs, so it is possible that traJ-II RNAs play a similar role as targets of an antisense RNA. However, some sequence features within the traJ-II RNA motif suggest that the biological RNA might be transcribed from the reverse-complement strand. Thus is it unclear whether traJ-II function as cis-regulatory elements. traJ-II RNAs are found in a variety of Pseudomonadota.

It was later observed [2] that traJ-II RNAs location in the genome overlap a previously established oriT (Origin of transfer) plasmid sequence, [3] [4] thus suggesting that the traJ RNA motif might actually function at the DNA level as an oriT, and not function as an RNA.

References

  1. Weinberg Z, Wang JX, Bogue J, et al. (March 2010). "Comparative genomics reveals 104 candidate structured RNAs from bacteria, archaea and their metagenomes". Genome Biol. 11 (3): R31. doi: 10.1186/gb-2010-11-3-r31 . PMC   2864571 . PMID   20230605.
  2. Li Y, Cunha da Silva G, Li Y, Rossi CC, Fernandez Crespol R, Williamson SM, Langford PR, Soares Bazzolli DM, Bossé JT (October 23, 2018). "Evidence of Illegitimate Recombination Between Two Pasteurellaceae Plasmids Resulting in a Novel Multi-Resistance Replicon, pM3362MDR, in Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae". Front. Microbiol. 9: 2489. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.02489 . PMC   6206304 . PMID   30405558.
  3. Ziegelin G, Fürste JP, Lanka E (July 1989). "TraJ protein of plasmid RP4 binds to a 19-base pair invert sequence repetition within the transfer origin". J. Biol. Chem. 264 (20): 11989–11994. doi: 10.1016/S0021-9258(18)80164-8 . PMID   2663846.
  4. Pansegrau W, Balzer D, Kruft V, Lurz R, Lanka E (September 1990). "In vitro assembly of relaxosomes at the transfer origin of plasmid RP4". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87 (17): 6555–6559. Bibcode:1990PNAS...87.6555P. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.17.6555 . PMC   54575 . PMID   2168553.