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The secret to 6S: regulating RNA polymerase by ribo‐sequestration
Author(s) -
Decker Kimberly B.,
Hinton Deborah M.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
molecular microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.857
H-Index - 247
eISSN - 1365-2958
pISSN - 0950-382X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2009.06759.x
Subject(s) - sigma factor , biology , rna polymerase , transcription (linguistics) , rna , rna polymerase ii , promoter , rna polymerase ii holoenzyme , transcription factor ii d , polymerase , genetics , microbiology and biotechnology , dna , gene expression , gene , linguistics , philosophy
Summary Regulating transcription under different conditions is vital to all organisms. As Escherichia coli shifts from exponential to stationary growth, regulation of transcription is achieved in large part by the tight binding of 6S RNA to Eσ 70 , RNA polymerase with the σ 70 specificity subunit. Ribo‐sequestration of Eσ 70 by 6S RNA serves to downregulate σ 70 ‐dependent transcription, which is needed for exponential growth. This facilitates transcription from promoters dependent on stationary phase sigma, σ s . Previous work has suggested that the 6S RNA binding to Eσ 70 simply mimics the Eσ 70 /promoter interaction. In this issue of Molecular Microbiology , Klocko and Wassarman demonstrate that many of the contacts between residues within σ 70 region 4 and 6S RNA are distinct from those between region 4 and promoter DNA. Several residues that interact with 6S RNA are ones previously known to interact with protein activators of Eσ 70 . Their work adds 6S RNA to the growing list of factors that can regulate Eσ 70 by interacting with region 4.