Small stable RNA maturation and turnover in Bacillus subtilis

Abstract

Summary: Stable RNA maturation is a key process in the generation of functional RNAs, and failure to correctly process these RNAs can lead to their elimination through quality control mechanisms. Studies of the maturation pathways of ribosomal RNA and transfer RNA in Bacillussubtilis showed they were radically different from Escherichiacoli and led to the identification of new B.subtilis-specific enzymes. We noticed that, despite their important roles in translation, a number of B.subtilis small stable RNAs still did not have characterised maturation pathways, notably the tmRNA, involved in ribosome rescue, and the RNase P RNA, involved in tRNA maturation. Here, we show that tmRNA is matured by RNase P and RNase Z at its 5′ and 3′ extremities, respectively, whereas the RNase P RNA is matured on its 3′ side by RNase Y. Recent evidence that several RNases are not essential in B.subtilis prompted us to revisit maturation of the scRNA, a component of the signal recognition particle involved in co-translational insertion of specific proteins into the membrane. We show that RNase Y is also involved in 3′ processing of scRNA. Lastly, we identified some of the enzymes involved in the turnover of these three stable RNAs.