Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Journal Club
When: Monday, Sept. 19, at noon
Presenter: Travis LaGree (Dr. Mok Lab)
Where: E-2036
Title: "Ubiquitous mRNA decay fragments in E. coli redefine the functional transcriptome"
Authors and Journal: Lydia Herzel , Julian A. Stanley , Chun-Chen Yao and Gene-Wei Li*
Link: https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/50/9/5029/6582168?login=true
Brief Description: Bacterial mRNAs progress from nascent transcripts to translated proteins or degraded fragments within minutes. Until now, the overall abundance of full-length mRNAs, nascent RNAs, and decay intermediates has not been effectively surveyed in bacterial cells. In this publication, the authors find that mRNA decay intermediates are heterogeneous, and account for a sizable portion (median >60%) of the RNAs within cells. Because commonly used RNA-seq techniques often cannot resolve full-length mRNAs and other forms, the impact that we impart to bacterial expression data must be re-evaluated. I chose this paper because of its interesting implications on the field of microbiology. I think the findings from this paper will encourage me to make appropriate conclusions from bacterial expression data that I and others generate in the future. This paper also provides an interesting “jumping-off point” for discussions on how these decay intermediates may be used or may be beneficial to prokaryotic cells.
For more information, contact: Rosalie Pion at rpion@uchc.edu