Abstract
Bacterial small RNAs (sRNAs) are critical post-transcriptional regulators that exert broad effects on cell physiology. One class of sRNAs, referred to as trans-acting sRNAs, base-pairs with mRNAs to cause changes in their stability or translation. Another class of sRNAs sequesters RNA-binding proteins that in turn modulate mRNA expression. RNA chaperones play key roles in these regulatory events by promoting base-pairing of sRNAs to mRNAs, increasing the stability of sRNAs, inducing conformational changes on mRNA targets upon binding, or by titrating sRNAs away from their primary targets. In pathogenic bacteria, sRNAs and their chaperones exert broad impacts on both cell physiology and virulence, highlighting the central role of these systems in pathogenesis. This review provides an overview of the growing number and roles of these chaperone proteins in sRNA regulation, highlighting how these proteins contribute to bacterial pathogenesis.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) published on its website in 2017 that infectious diseases are among the leading causes of death in the world
Even though many questions remain unanswered regarding the role of bacterial RNA chaperone proteins in gene expression and pathogenesis, advances in the field and the development of new methodologies over the past two decades have shed significant light on the matter
The more recently characterized ProQ as an Small bacterial regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) chaperone is just one great example of our limited knowledge regarding the function of bacterial sRNAs
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) published on its website in 2017 that infectious diseases are among the leading causes of death in the world. The ultimate challenge to manage the impact of infectious diseases is to better understand processes guiding microbial pathogenesis. An organism’s ability to respond to environmental stresses is critical for survival, and bacterial pathogens have long been known to mediate gene expression changes in response to host-specific cues including antibiotics, carbon source, temperature, pH, reactive oxygen species, and metal nutrients. Through accurate and timely regulation of virulence gene expression, bacteria efficiently evade the host immune system, and save energy and avoid the potential toxicity of excess nutrients. Small bacterial regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) have gained immense appreciation over the past two decades for their roles in mediating post-transcriptional gene regulation of numerous physiological and virulence-related processes in bacteria by synchronizing complex networks of stress adaptation [recently reviewed by (Chakravarty and Masse, 2019)]. The purpose of this review is to highlight the increasingly appreciated role
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