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Mycobacterium smegmatis RNase J is a 5′‐3′ exo‐/endoribonuclease and both RNase J and RNase E are involved in ribosomal RNA maturation
Author(s) -
Taverniti Valerio,
Forti Francesca,
Ghisotti Daniela,
Putzer Harald
Publication year - 2011
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.1365-2958.2011.07888.x
Subject(s) - endoribonuclease , rnase p , rnase mrp , mycobacterium smegmatis , biology , rna , ribosomal rna , degradosome , rnase ph , rnase h , ribonuclease iii , non coding rna , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , gene , rna interference , mycobacterium tuberculosis , medicine , tuberculosis , pathology
Summary The presence of very different sets of enzymes, and in particular the presence of RNase E and RNase J, has been used to explain significant differences in RNA metabolism between the two model organisms Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis . However, these studies might have somewhat polarized our view of RNA metabolism. Here, we identified a RNase J in Mycobacterium smegmatis that has both 5′‐3′ exo‐ and endonucleolytic activity. This enzyme coexists with RNase E in this organism, a configuration that enabled us to study how these two key nucleases collaborate. We demonstrate that RNase E is responsible for the processing of the furA‐katG transcript in M. smegmatis and that both RNase E and RNase J are involved in the 5′ end processing of all ribosomal RNAs. In contrast to B. subtilis , the activity of RNase J, although required in vivo for 23S rRNA maturation, is not essential in M. smegmatis . We show that the pathways for ribosomal RNA maturation in M. smegmatis are quite different from those observed in E. coli and in B. subtilis . Studying organisms containing different combinations of key ribonucleases can thus significantly broaden our view of the possible strategies that exist to direct RNA metabolism.