The aspS RNA motif is a conserved RNA structure that was discovered by bioinformatics.[1] aspS motifs are found in a specific lineage of Actinomycetota.
| aspS | |
|---|---|
 Consensus secondary structure and sequence conservation of aspS RNA | |
| Identifiers | |
| Symbol | aspS |
| Rfam | RF02930 |
| Other data | |
| RNA type | Cis-reg |
| SO | SO:0005836 |
| PDB structures | PDBe |
aspS motif RNAs likely function as cis-regulatory elements, in view of their positions upstream of protein-coding genes. Instances of the aspS RNA motif are often located nearby to the predicted Shine-Dalgarno sequence of the downstream gene. This arrangement is consistent with a model of cis-regulation where the RNA allosterically controls access to the Shine-Dalgarno sequence, thus regulating the gene translationally.
aspS genes encode aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. T-box leader RNAs detect low levels of various amino acids, and regulate genes in a cis-regulatory manner. Genes regulated by T-box RNAs often include aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. It is possible that aspS RNAs are diverged examples of T-box RNAs, or they might implement a different structural solution to the same biological problem.
References
edit- ^ Weinberg Z, Lünse CE, Corbino KA, Ames TD, Nelson JW, Roth A, Perkins KR, Sherlock ME, Breaker RR (October 2017). "Detection of 224 candidate structured RNAs by comparative analysis of specific subsets of intergenic regions". Nucleic Acids Res. 45 (18): 10811–10823. doi:10.1093/nar/gkx699. PMC 5737381. PMID 28977401.