• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.1137-1140
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• 2008

M1 RNA, the catalytic subunit of Escherichia coli RNase P, is an essential ribozyme that processes the 5' leader sequence of tRNA precursors (ptRNAs). Using KS2003, an E. coli strain generating only low levels of M1 RNA, which showed growth defects, we examined whether M1 RNA is involved in polycistronic mRNA processing or degradation. Microarray analysis of total RNA from KS2003 revealed six polycistronic operon mRNAs (acpP-fabF, cysDNC, flgAMN, lepAB, phoPQ, and puuCBE) showing large differences in expression between the adjacent genes in the same mRNA transcript compared with the KS2001 wild type strain. Model substrates spanning an adjacent pair of genes for each polycistronic mRNA were tested for RNase P cleavage in vitro. Five model RNAs (cysNC, flgMN, lepAB, phoPQ, and puuBE) were cleaved by RNase P holoenzyme but not by M1 RNA alone. However, the cleavages occurred at non-ptRNA-like cleavage sites, with much less efficiency than the cleavage of ptRNA. Since cleavage products generated by RNase P from a polycistronic mRNA can have different in vivo stabilities, our results suggest that RNase P cleavage may lead to differential expression of each cistron.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.15-20
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• 2002

Diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) phosphorylates the second messenger diacylglycerol (DAG) to phosphatidic acid and it may play a role in signal transduction in Escherichia coli as well as in eukaryotic cells. In addition, DGK is important for microorganisms to adapt to several physiological stimuli. In Bacillus subtilis, the effect of stress on dgk transcription was examined by northern hybridization. The high level of dgk transcription was induced against high osmolarity, low pH value and low temperature. Transcriptional analysis revealed that the dgk gene and dgk upstream locus (ORF2, ORF3 and ORF4) were transcribed as a polycistronic mRNA to form an approximately 2.5 kb transcript.