Abstract
RNA thermometers are RNA regulatory elements that convert temperature into a functional biological response through a temperature-induced conformational change. These regulatory elements have been investigated in numerous natural contexts and have been designed for synthetic biology as well. A basic challenge has been the design of an RNA thermometer whose final activity in response to temperature matches a prespecified response, in terms of its sensitivity, threshold, and leakiness. This chapter provides a methodology for the design of a toolbox of RNA thermometers. We describe considerations for the conceptual design, a computational assessment, and strategies for experimental synthesis and measurement.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Mashuq un Nabi.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Narberhaus F, Waldminghaus T, Chowdhury S (2005) RNA thermometers. FEMS Microbiol Rev 30:3–16
Klinker B, Narberhaus F (2009) Microbial thermosensors. Cell Mol Life Sci 66:2661–2676
Kortmann J, Narberhaus F (2012) Bacterial RNA thermometers: molecular zippers and switches. Nat Rev Microbiol 10:255–265
De la Fuente M, Valera S, MartÃnez-Guitarte (2012) ncRNAs and thermoregulation: a view in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. FEBS Lett 586:4061–4069
Krajewski SS, Narberhaus F (2014) Temperature-driven differential gene expression by RNA thermosensors. Biochim Biophys Acta 1839:978–988
Mandin P, Johansson J (2020) Feeling the heat at the millennium: thermosensors playing with fire. Mol Microbiol 113:588–592
Hoynes-O’Connor A, Hinman K, Kirchner L et al (2015) De novo design of heat-repressible RNA thermosensors in E. coli. Nucleic Acids Res 43:6166–6179
Roßmanith J, Weskamp M, Narberhaus F (2018) Design of a temperature-responsive transcription terminator. ACS Synth Biol 7:613–621
Neupert J, Karcher D, Bock R (2008) Design of simple synthetic RNA thermometers for temperature-controlled gene expression in Escherichia coli. Nucleic Acids Res 36:e124
Jia H, Sun X, Sun H et al (2016) Intelligent microbial heat-regulating engine (IMHeRE) for improved thermo-robustness and efficiency of bioconversion. ACS Synth Biol 5:312–320
Sen S, Apurva D, Satija R et al (2017) Design of a toolbox of RNA thermometers. ACS Synth Biol 6:1461–1470
Sadler FW, Dodevski I, Sarkar CA (2018) RNA thermometers for the PURExpress system. ACS Synth Biol 7:292–296
Jia H, Heymann M, Härtel T et al (2019) Temperature-sensitive protein expression in protocells. Chem Commun 55:6421–6427
Morita M, Kanemori M, Yanagi H et al (1999) Heat-induced synthesis of σ32 in Escherichia coli: structural and functional dissection of rpoH mRNA secondary structure. J Bacteriol 181:401–410
Morita MT, Tanaka Y, Kodama TS et al (1999) Translational induction of heat shock transcription factor σ32: evidence for a built-in thermosensor. Genes Dev 13:655–665
Waldminghaus T, Heidrich N, Brantl S et al (2007) FourU: a novel type of RNA thermometer in Salmonella. Mol Microbiol 65:413–424
Eriksson S, Hurme R, Rhen M (2002) Low-temperature sensors in bacteria. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 357:887–893
Giuliodori AM, Di Pietro F, Marzi S et al (2010) The cspA mRNA is a thermosensor that modulates translation of the cold-shock protein CspA. Mol Cell 37:21–33
Shapiro RS, Cowen LE (2012) Thermal control of microbial development and virulence: molecular mechanisms of microbial temperature sensing. MBio 3:e00238–e00212
Wang Y-H, Wei KY, Smolke CD (2013) Synthetic biology: advancing the design of diverse genetic systems. Annu Rev Chem Biomol Eng 4:69–102
Piraner DI, Abedi MH, Moser BA et al (2017) Tunable thermal bioswitches for in vivo control of microbial therapeutics. Nat Chem Biol 13:75–80
Hussain F, Gupta C, Hirnin AJ et al (2014) Engineered temperature compensation in a synthetic genetic clock. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 111:972–977
Sen S, Kim J, Murray RM (2014) Designing robustness to temperature in a feedforward loop circuit. In: Proceedings of 53rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp 4629–4634
Neupert J, Bock R (2009) Designing and using synthetic RNA thermometers for temperature-controlled gene expression in bacteria. Nat Protoc 4:1262–1273
Meyer S, Carlson PD, Lucks JB (2017) Characterizing the structure-function relationship of a naturally occurring RNA thermometer. Biochemistry 56:6629–6638
Zadeh JN, Steenberg CD, Bois JS et al (2011) NUPACK: analysis and design of nucleic acid systems. J Comput Chem 32:170–173
Berwal SK, Sreejith RK, Pal JK (2010) Distance between RBS and AUG plays an important role in overexpression of recombinant proteins. Anal Biochem 405:275–277
Vellanoweth RL, Rabinowitz JC (1992) The influence of ribosome-binding-site elements on translational efficiency in Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli in vivo. Mol Microbiol 6:1105–1114
Lorenz R, Bernhart SH, zu Siederdissen H et al (2011) ViennaRNA Package 2.0. Algorithms Mol Bio 6:26
Garcia-Martin JA, Dotu I, Fernandez-Chamorro J (2016) RNAiFold2T: constraint programming design of thermo-IRES switches. Bioinformatics 32:i360–i368
Sun ZZ, Hayes CA, Shin J (2013) Protocols for implementing and Escherichia coli based TX-TL cell-free expression system for synthetic biology. J Vis Exp:e50762
Acknowledgments
Support from DBT (BT/PR28513/med/32/672/2019) and the Discover and Learn Program, IRD, IIT Delhi is gratefully acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Sen, S., Patel, A., Gola, K.K. (2022). Design of a Toolbox of RNA Thermometers. In: Chappell, J., Takahashi, M.K. (eds) Riboregulator Design and Analysis. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2518. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2421-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2421-0_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-2420-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-2421-0
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols