Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Cellular microbiology

Ironing out Hfq regulation

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 10, pages 310–311 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

incubation of Hfq with RelA led to a substantial increase in the active hexameric form of the protein

To identify regulators of sRNA activity, the authors examined the growth phenotypes of a collection of Escherichia coli mutants that had been transformed with plasmids encoding selected sRNAs. The sRNA RhyB is involved in iron homeostasis and inhibits growth during iron deprivation by blocking expression of its target mRNAs, a process that is aided by Hfq. The authors found that constitutive expression of RhyB led to growth arrest and that this was dependent on the presence of a wild-type relA allele. Importantly, this effect was evident in rich medium, an environment in which the stringent response is not activated, indicating that ppGpp and the synthetase activity of RelA were not involved in growth inhibition. To learn more about the correlation between RhyB activity and RelA, the levels of RhyB target mRNAs were measured in the wild-type and relA-mutant strains following growth in iron-limiting conditions. Interestingly, the dependence on RelA for RhyB-mediated silencing was restricted to a subset of mRNA targets; RelA was required for silencing of nuoA, fdoG and sodA mRNAs and partially influenced sdhC mRNA expression, whereas sodB mRNA levels were unaffected by the absence of RelA.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Argaman, L. et al. RelA protein stimulates the activity of RhyB small RNA by acting on RNA-binding protein Hfq. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 5 Mar 2012 (doi:10.1073/pnas.1113113109)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Christina Tobin Kåhrström
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kåhrström, C. Ironing out Hfq regulation. Nat Rev Microbiol 10, 310–311 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro2780

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro2780

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Microbiology

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Microbiology newsletter — what matters in microbiology research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Microbiology