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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
The Small RNA RteR Inhibits Transfer of the Bacteroides Conjugative Transposon CTnDOT
Contributor:
Waters, Jillian L.;
Salyers, Abigail A.
imprint:
American Society for Microbiology, 2012
Published in:Journal of Bacteriology
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1128/jb.00941-12
ISSN:
0021-9193;
1098-5530
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title>
<jats:p>
CTnDOT is a 65-kb conjugative transposon present in
<jats:named-content xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" content-type="genus-species" xlink:type="simple">Bacteroides</jats:named-content>
spp. that confers resistance to erythromycin [
<jats:italic>erm</jats:italic>
(F)] and tetracycline [
<jats:italic>tet</jats:italic>
(Q)]. An interesting feature of CTnDOT is that both excision from the chromosome and transfer of CTnDOT are stimulated by exposure to tetracycline. However, when no tetracycline is present, transfer of CTnDOT is not detectable. Previous studies suggested that a region containing a small RNA, RteR, appeared to mediate repression of CTnDOT transfer; however, virtually nothing was known about RteR. We have demonstrated that RteR is a 90-nucleotide transcript that is not further processed. RteR inhibits conjugative transfer of CTnDOT by targeting the transfer region, a 13-kb operon that encodes the
<jats:italic>tra</jats:italic>
genes required to assemble the mating apparatus. We report here that RteR interacts with the region downstream of
<jats:italic>traA</jats:italic>
. Levels of the downstream
<jats:italic>tra</jats:italic>
mRNA are dramatically reduced when RteR is present. Further, RteR does not appear to decrease the half-life of the
<jats:italic>tra</jats:italic>
mRNA transcript, suggesting that RteR does not bind to the transcript to initiate RNase-dependent decay, similar to other
<jats:italic>trans</jats:italic>
-acting small RNAs. We predict that RteR may act to enhance termination of the
<jats:italic>tra</jats:italic>
operon within
<jats:italic>traB</jats:italic>
, which could account for the decreased abundance of the
<jats:italic>tra</jats:italic>
transcript downstream of
<jats:italic>traA</jats:italic>
and explain why the
<jats:italic>tra</jats:italic>
mRNA has the same half-life whether or not RteR is present. RteR is the only small RNA that has been characterized so far within the
<jats:named-content xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" content-type="genus-species" xlink:type="simple">Bacteroidetes</jats:named-content>
phylum.
</jats:p>