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Abstract
BackgroundSmall bacterial RNAs (sRNAs) have been shown to participate in the regulation of gene expression and have been identified in numerous prokaryotic species. Some of them are involved in the regulation of virulence in pathogenic bacteria. So far, little is known about sRNAs in Bordetella, and only very few sRNAs have been identified in the genome of Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough.ResultsAn in silico approach was used to predict sRNAs genes in intergenic regions of the B. pertussis genome. The genome sequences of B. pertussis, Bordetella parapertussis, Bordetella bronchiseptica and Bordetella avium were compared using a Blast, and significant hits were analyzed using RNAz. Twenty-three candidate regions were obtained, including regions encoding the already documented 6S RNA, and the GCVT and FMN riboswitches. The existence of sRNAs was verified by Northern blot analyses, and transcripts were detected for 13 out of the 20 additional candidates. These new sRNAs were named Bordetella pertussis RNAs, bpr. The expression of 4 of them differed between the early, exponential and late growth phases, and one of them, bprJ2, was found to be under the control of BvgA/BvgS two-component regulatory system of Bordetella virulence. A phylogenetic study of the bprJ sequence revealed a novel, so far undocumented repeat of ~90 bp, found in numerous copies in the Bordetella genomes and in that of other Betaproteobacteria. This repeat exhibits certain features of mobile elements.ConclusionWe shown here that B. pertussis, like other pathogens, expresses sRNAs, and that the expression of one of them is controlled by the BvgA/BvgS system, similarly to most virulence genes, suggesting that it is involved in virulence of B. pertussis.
Highlights
Small bacterial RNAs have been shown to participate in the regulation of gene expression and have been identified in numerous prokaryotic species
In this work we focused on the pathogenic bacterium Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough, which remains an important global health problem, with up to 300,000 annual deaths and approximately 45 million cases each year [18,19]
We choose to work on a prediction obtained comparing genomes of B. pertussis Tohama I, B. bronchiseprica RB50, B. parapertussis 12822 and B. avium 197N
Summary
Small bacterial RNAs (sRNAs) have been shown to participate in the regulation of gene expression and have been identified in numerous prokaryotic species. Small bacterial RNAs (sRNAs) have recently been shown to participate in the regulation of gene expression, and have been identified in numerous prokaryotic species [1,2,3,4]. They act mainly by antisense base pairing with their target mRNAs, often within a complex comprising the Sm-like RNA chaperone Hfq [5,6,7] or by direct binding to proteins resulting in the modulation of their activity [8,9]. Several causes have been attributed to this resurgence, including increased awareness and improved diagnostics of the disease, waning of vaccine-induced immunity and pathogen adaptation [19,22]
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