Mechanistic study of base-pairing small regulatory RNAs in bacteria

- Bacterial small regulatory RNAs use a great diversity of mechanisms to regulate gene expression.
- Elucidation of these mechanisms require a combination of in vivo and in vitro experimental approaches.
- These approaches are useful in studying different classes of regulatory RNAs, including the widespread antisense RNAs.

In all three kingdoms of life, RNA is not only involved in the expression of genetic information, but also carries out extremely diverse cellular functions. This versatility is essentially due to the fact that RNA molecules can exploit the power of base pairing to allow them to fold into a wide variety of structures through which they can perform diverse roles, but also to selectively target and bind to other nucleic acids. This is true in particular for bacterial small regulatory RNAs that act by imperfect base-pairing with target mRNAs, and thereby control their expression through different mechanisms. Here we outline an overview of in vivo and in vitro approaches that are currently used to gain mechanistic insights into how these sRNAs control gene expression in bacteria.