The Lacto-''usp'' 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 in

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

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 ...

. Lacto-''usp'' RNAs are found exclusively in

lactic acid bacteria Lactobacillales are an order of gram-positive, low-GC, acid-tolerant, generally nonsporulating, nonrespiring, either rod-shaped (bacilli) or spherical (cocci) bacteria that share common metabolic and physiological characteristics. These bacte ...

, and exclusively in the possible 5′ untranslated regions of (5′ UTRs)

operon In genetics, an operon is a functioning unit of DNA containing a cluster of genes under the control of a single promoter. The genes are transcribed together into an mRNA strand and either translated together in the cytoplasm, or undergo splic ...

s that contain a hypothetical

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

and a ''usp'' gene. The ''usp'' gene encodes the

universal stress protein The universal stress protein (USP) domain is a superfamily of conserved genes which can be found in bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa and plants.. Proteins containing the domain are induced by many environmental stressors such as nutrient starvat ...

. It was proposed that the Lacto-''usp'' might correspond to the

6S RNA In the field of molecular biology the 6S RNA is a non-coding RNA that was one of the first to be identified and sequenced. What it does in the bacterial cell was unknown until recently. In the early 2000s scientists found out the function of 6S ...

of the relevant species, because four of five of these species lack a predicted 6S RNA, and 6S RNAs commonly occur in 5′ UTRs of ''usp'' genes. However, given that the Lacto-''usp'' RNA motif is much shorter than the standard 6S RNA structure, the function of Lacto-''usp'' RNAs remains unclear.

References

External links

* Non-coding RNA {{molecular-cell-biology-stub