Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-11-2021
Abstract
As compared to eukaryotes, bacteria have a reduced tRNA gene set encoding between 30 and 220 tRNAs. Although in most bacterial phyla tRNA genes are dispersed in the genome, many species from distinct phyla also show genes forming arrays. Here, we show that two types of arrays with distinct evolutionary origins exist. This work focuses on long tRNA gene arrays (L-arrays) that encompass up to 43 genes, which disseminate by horizontal gene transfer and contribute supernumerary tRNA genes to the host. Although in the few cases previously studied these arrays were reported to be poorly transcribed, here we show that the L-array of the model cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120, encoding 23 functional tRNAs, is largely induced upon impairment of the translation machinery. The cellular response to this challenge involves a global reprogramming of the transcriptome in two phases. tRNAs encoded in the array are induced in the second phase of the response, directly contributing to cell survival. Results presented here show that in some bacteria the tRNA gene set may be partitioned between a housekeeping subset, which constantly sustains translation, and an inducible subset that is generally silent but can provide functionality under particular conditions.
Recommended Citation
Javier Santamaría-Gómez, Miguel Ángel Rubio, Rocío López-Igual, Ana B Romero-Losada, Fernando M Delgado-Chaves, Roque Bru-Martínez, Francisco J Romero-Campero, Antonia Herrero, Michael Ibba, Jesús A G Ochoa de Alda, Ignacio Luque, Role of a cryptic tRNA gene operon in survival under translational stress, Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 49, Issue 15, 7 September 2021, Pages 8757–8776, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab661
Copyright
The authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
Bacteriology Commons, Biology Commons, Genetics Commons, Other Genetics and Genomics Commons, Other Microbiology Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in Nucleic Acids Research, volume 49, issue 5, in 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab661