RNA Degradation in Staphylococcus aureus: Diversity of Ribonucleases and Their Impact

Figure 2

Examples of RNase III functions (a) Schematic view of S. aureus RNAIII structure. RNAIII is involved in the regulation of virulence genes by base-pairing with specific mRNAs [57]. (b) The region of coa mRNA (encoding coagulase) close to its Shine-Dalgarno sequence base-pairs with the RNAIII helix H13 and is stabilized by a second interaction involving the RNAIII helixH7. RNase III degrades the coa mRNA-RNAIII duplex, both in the SD region and within the loop-loop interaction region. (c) RNase III degrades ds-RNAs including sense-antisense RNA duplexes as exemplified by type I toxin-antitoxin systems [16]. (d) Cleavage inside a stem-loop can give rise to a more stable mRNA, as demonstrated for the cold shock protein A cspA mRNA. Cleavage of the stem-loop releases the translation start codon and a new stem-loop protects the 5′ end from RNase J-mediated degradation [24].

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