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Bacterial physiology

Bacterial argonaute sets sail

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 11, page 743 (2013)Cite this article

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Argonaute proteins have been identified in a range of bacteria and archaea. Although several crystallographic structures have been made available, and there has been a preliminary characterization of the substrate-binding properties of some bacterial argonaute proteins, few experimental insights into their in vivo biological functions have been gained thus far.

The authors were interested in the nucleic acid-binding properties of the argonaute protein from Rhodobacter sphaeroides and began by expressing and purifying the protein, before characterizing the bound nucleic acids. Two distinct fractions of bound nucleic acids were detected: a fraction of small RNAs, which were mostly 15–19 nucleotides in length, and a fraction of small DNAs, which were mostly 22–24 nucleotides in length.

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References

  1. Olovnikov, I. et al. Bacterial argonaute samples the transcriptome to identify foreign DNA. Mol. Cell 51, 594–605 (2013)

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  1. Sheilagh Molloy
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Molloy, S. Bacterial argonaute sets sail. Nat Rev Microbiol 11, 743 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro3150

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