Association of RNAs with Bacillus subtilis Hfq (original) (raw)
Figure 8
Coimmunoprecipitation of CsfG, an sRNA conserved in Bacillaceae, with Hfq.
(A–B) Previously, an orphan riboswitch was identified upstream of the ylbH gene in certain Bacillaceae [61], [71]–[72]. In this study, we find that this RNA element is not likely to be conserved as a 5′ leader region for the ylbH gene, but is instead transcribed from the reverse genomic strand as a putative sRNA, which has been recently coined csfG [62]. This region was detected by northern blot analyses using oligonucleotide probes to hybridize to the region upstream of the ylbH gene (+ strand) and to the reverse complement of that sequence (−strand). A signal was only observed for an RNA sequence transcribed from the reverse complement strand, consistent with synthesis of CsfG. This putative sRNA also appeared to coIP with Hfq by northern blot analysis. Furthermore, the intracellular abundance of the sRNA was moderately decreased in a Δ_hfq_ strain. (C–D) Consensus secondary structure diagram of the recently identified sRNA, CsfG (data not shown; [62]). Residues in red represent 95% conservation. This primary sequence and secondary structure consensus pattern was generated from covariance model searches (data not shown).