Functions of DEAD-box proteins in bacteria: Current knowledge and pending questions

► E. coli DEAD-box proteins mainly take part in ribosome assembly and mRNA degradation ► SrmB, DeaD, DbpA, participate in successive steps of 50S ribosomal subunit assembly ► RhlB and DeaD unwind RNA hairpins to assist single-strand specific RNases ► E. coli DEAD-box proteins take part in redundant pathways, hence their dispensability ► Bacterial DEAD-box helicases help solving the RNA folding problem in the cold