Remodeling the bacterial ribosome in response to stress

To survive, bacteria must adapt to changing and often stressful environments. Adaptation strategies often center on changes in gene expression, which enable the bacteria to cope with the new environment. In work published in Cell, Isabella Moll and her team at the Max Perutz Labs show that the stress-induced endoribonuclease, MazF, selectively cleaves both a subset of mRNAs and the 16S rRNA in the decoding center of the 30S subunit of the ribosome. These modified ribosomes selectively translate the leaderless mRNAs produced by MazF and thereby tune the expression of genes required for stress adaptation.

The publication in Cell of MFPL group leader Isabella Moll reveals a novel mechanism of stress response in E. coli.

Bacteria frequently experience changes in their environmental conditions. In order to survive they have developed different strategies to alter gene expression. Oliver Vesper, Isabella Moll and their team show that - when encountering stress - the bacteria Escherichia coli generates functionally specialized ribosomes by truncating rRNA mediated by the endoribonuclease MazF, the toxin component of the toxin–antitoxin module mazEF. Moreover, MazF specifically removes 5´-UTRs of distinct transcripts to form leaderless mRNAs, which are selectively translated by the altered ribosomes to adjust the translational program to stress.

Original publication in Cell:
Oliver Vesper, Shahar Amitai, Maria Belitsky, Konstantin Byrgazov, Anna Chao Kaberdina, Hanna Engelberg-Kulka and Isabella Moll. Selective Translation of Leaderless mRNAs by Specialized Ribosomes Generated by MazF in Escherichia coli.

Key Discovery

Remodeling the bacterial ribosome in response to stress

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