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RNAIII suppresses the expression of LtaS via acting as an antisense RNA in Staphylococcus aureus
Author(s) -
Yan Jun,
Liu Yu,
Gao Yaping,
Dong Jie,
Mu Chunhua,
Li Di,
Yang Guang
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of basic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.58
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1521-4028
pISSN - 0233-111X
DOI - 10.1002/jobm.201400313
Subject(s) - effector , untranslated region , lipoteichoic acid , messenger rna , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , gene , staphylococcus aureus , genetics , bacteria
RNAIII is known as the key effector of staphylococcal accessory gene regulator (agr) quorum‐sensing system, which plays a central role in the pathogenesis of Staphylococcus aureus . As a regulatory RNA, RNAIII regulates multiple targets, including exoproteins and cell‐wall‐associated proteins. Lipoteichoic acid synthase (LtaS) is involved in the synthesis of lipoteichoic acid (LTA) that is one of the major components of cell wall. The chemical compound targeting to LtaS decreases S. aureus growth via blocking LTA production. Until now, the regulatory mechanism of LtaS expression is still not clear. The level of ltaS mRNA in S. aureus is analyzed by semi‐quantitative RT‐PCR analysis and qRT‐PCR. The protein level of LtaS is determined by Western blotting. The putative interaction sites between RNAIII and LtaS mRNA are predicted. And LtaS‐5′UTR‐lacZ and LtaS‐5′UTR‐mutant‐lacZ reporter vectors are constructed according to the putative interaction sites. Our data show that the expression of ltaS is regulated by RNAIII in S. aureus . The level of LtaS is significantly higher in the RNAIII deficient strain compared to its parent strain. In the further investigation, 5′UTR of ltaS was predicted to be the putative interaction site of RNAIII. The results of detection of β‐galactosidase activities suggest that RNAIII can inhibit the expression level of LtaS through acting on the 5′UTR region of LtaS mRNA. Our finding presents that LtaS is another target of RNAIII and RNAIII suppresses the expression of LtaS via acting as an antisense RNA in S. aureus .