Widespread Antisense Transcription in Prokaryotes

Microbiology Spectrum
Jens Georg, Wolfgang R Hess

Abstract

Although bacterial genomes are usually densely protein-coding, genome-wide mapping approaches of transcriptional start sites revealed that a significant fraction of the identified promoters drive the transcription of noncoding RNAs. These can be trans-acting RNAs, mainly originating from intergenic regions and, in many studied examples, possessing regulatory functions. However, a significant fraction of these noncoding RNAs consist of natural antisense transcripts (asRNAs), which overlap other transcriptional units. Naturally occurring asRNAs were first observed to play a role in bacterial plasmid replication and in bacteriophage λ more than 30 years ago. Today's view is that asRNAs abound in all three domains of life. There are several examples of asRNAs in bacteria with clearly defined functions. Nevertheless, many asRNAs appear to result from pervasive initiation of transcription, and some data point toward global functions of such widespread transcriptional activity, explaining why the search for a specific regulatory role is sometimes futile. In this review, we give an overview about the occurrence of antisense transcription in bacteria, highlight particular examples of functionally characterized asRNAs, and discuss recent...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 23, 2020·FEMS Microbiology Reviews·S Joke LambrechtWolfgang R Hess
Mar 19, 2020·Molecular Microbiology·Alejandro Toledo-Arana, Iñigo Lasa
Apr 23, 2019·Nucleic Acids Research·Isabelle IostFabien Darfeuille
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Jul 10, 2021·Nature Microbiology·Falk PonathJörg Vogel
Jul 8, 2021·Applied and Environmental Microbiology·Amanda Y van TilburgOscar P Kuipers

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