Dual-Function RNAs

Bacteria have evolved elaborate responses to sense, protect against, and help recovery from stressful fluctuations in environmental conditions. In the past decade, small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) have emerged as important players in the posttranscriptional regulation of various stress responses. Advances in deep sequencing have led to the identification of hundreds of these sRNAs, which range from 50 to 350 nucleotides (nt) in length, thereby greatly increasing the numbers of known sRNAs (1). Usually, these sRNA regulators are thought to be noncoding and are generally presumed to act by modulating the stability and translation of mRNAs through short base-pairing interactions or by binding to and modulating the activities of RNA-binding proteins.