Peters JM, Mooney RA, Grass JA, Jessen ED, Tran F, Landick R. Rho and NusG suppress pervasive antisense transcription in Escherichia coli.
Genes Dev 2013. [PMID:
23207917 DOI:
10.1101/gad.196741.112]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 202] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Despite the prevalence of antisense transcripts in bacterial transcriptomes, little is known about how their synthesis is controlled. We report that a major function of the Escherichia coli termination factor Rho and its cofactor, NusG, is suppression of ubiquitous antisense transcription genome-wide. Rho binds C-rich unstructured nascent RNA (high C/G ratio) prior to its ATP-dependent dissociation of transcription complexes. NusG is required for efficient termination at minority subsets (~20%) of both antisense and sense Rho-dependent terminators with lower C/G ratio sequences. In contrast, a widely studied nusA deletion proposed to compromise Rho-dependent termination had no effect on antisense or sense Rho-dependent terminators in vivo. Global colocalization of the histone-like nucleoid-structuring protein (H-NS) with Rho-dependent terminators and genetic interactions between hns and rho suggest that H-NS aids Rho in suppression of antisense transcription. The combined actions of Rho, NusG, and H-NS appear to be analogous to the Sen1-Nrd1-Nab3 and nucleosome systems that suppress antisense transcription in eukaryotes.
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