The ''lactis''-plasmid RNA motif is a conserved
RNA
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...
structure identified by
bioinformatics
Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
.
The RNAs are restricted to
lactic acid bacteria, and are especially common in ''
Lactococcus lactis''. They typically lie near to ''repB'' genes, and are almost found in
plasmid
A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; how ...
s. This data suggested that ''lactis''-plasmid RNAs participate in the control of plasmid abundance.
However, many of the plasmids that carry ''lactis''-plasmid RNAs also carry
ctRNA
In molecular biology ctRNA (counter-transcribed RNA) is a plasmid encoded noncoding RNA that binds to the mRNA of repB and causes translation (genetics), translational inhibition.
ctRNA is encoded by plasmids and functions in rolling circle repl ...
-pND324 RNAs, which are involved in plasmid copy count regulation. Therefore ''lactis''-plasmid RNAs might have a different function.
See also
*
R1162-like plasmid antisense RNA
References
External links
*
Non-coding RNA
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