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Exceptional structured noncoding RNAs revealed by bacterial metagenome analysis

Nature volume 462, pages 656–659 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Estimates of the total number of bacterial species1,2,3 indicate that existing DNA sequence databases carry only a tiny fraction of the total amount of DNA sequence space represented by this division of life. Indeed, environmental DNA samples have been shown to encode many previously unknown classes of proteins4 and RNAs5. Bioinformatics searches6,7,8,9,10 of genomic DNA from bacteria commonly identify new noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs)10,11,12 such as riboswitches13,14. In rare instances, RNAs that exhibit more extensive sequence and structural conservation across a wide range of bacteria are encountered15,16. Given that large structured RNAs are known to carry out complex biochemical functions such as protein synthesis and RNA processing reactions, identifying more RNAs of great size and intricate structure is likely to reveal additional biochemical functions that can be achieved by RNA. We applied an updated computational pipeline17 to discover ncRNAs that rival the known large ribozymes in size and structural complexity or that are among the most abundant RNAs in bacteria that encode them. These RNAs would have been difficult or impossible to detect without examining environmental DNA sequences, indicating that numerous RNAs with extraordinary size, structural complexity, or other exceptional characteristics remain to be discovered in unexplored sequence space.

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Figure 1: Size and structural complexity of new-found RNAs compared to the ten largest known bacterial ncRNAs with complex structures.
Figure 2: GOLLD RNAs.
Figure 3: HEARO RNAs.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Carriero and R. Bjornson for assisting our use of the Yale Life Sciences High Performance Computing Center (NIH grant RR19895-02), T. Gruczka for advice and assistance in ocean water collection, J. Yang for assistance with the analysis of the dct-1 motif, D. Rodrigues for E. sibiricum, D. Bryant for A. maxima genomic DNA and P. O’Donoghue, M. Hammond, N. Sudarsan, S. Li, J. Barrick, Z. Yao, W. L. Ruzzo and E. Tseng for advice. J.P. and M.M.M. were supported by postdoctoral fellowships from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and National Institutes of Health, respectively. R.R.B. is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Author Contributions Z.W. and R.R.B. conceived the study and R.R.B. supervised the research. Z.W. created bioinformatics scripts and prepared RNA sequence alignments. J.P. conducted GOLLD and IMES RNA experiments. M.M.M. conducted GOLLD RACE and HEARO RNA experiments. Z.W. and R.R.B. wrote the manuscript, and all authors participated in editing.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute,,

    Zasha Weinberg & Ronald R. Breaker

  2. Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology,

    Zasha Weinberg, Jonathan Perreault, Michelle M. Meyer & Ronald R. Breaker

  3. Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, Box 208103, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8103, USA,

    Ronald R. Breaker

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  1. Zasha Weinberg
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Correspondence to Ronald R. Breaker.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Notes, Supplementary Tables 1-3, Supplementary Figures 1-11 with Legends and Supplementary References. (PDF 1207 kb)

Supplementary Data 1

This file presents detailed data on GOLLD, HEARO and IMES RNAs in printable format. For each RNA class, the organisms containing representatives are listed, and the nucleotide coordinates and genes surrounding each representative are depicted. The file also contains a full multiple-sequence alignment with consensus secondary structure for each RNA class. Also included are proposed alignments of regions of the 5' half of GOLLD RNA in Streptococus species, and a smaller structure that is more broadly detected. (PDF 3544 kb)

Supplementary Data 2

This compressed archive file houses multiple-sequence alignments in machine-readable format. The alignments were presented in printable form in Supplementary Data 1. The alignments include additional annotation used to generate drawings and printable data, as well as sequences that flank the RNAs. Each alignment is stored in "Stockholm" text format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_format). The Stockholm files can be extracted from the .tar.gz format archive using programs such as WinZip (Windows), StuffIt Expander (Mac) or the tar/gzip commands (UNIX). (TAR 2050 kb)

Supplementary Data 3

This compressed archive file houses multiple-sequence alignments in Stockholm text format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_format). However, annotation beyond the consensus secondary structure and flanking sequence is not included. The Stockholm files can be extracted from the .tar.gz format archive using programs such as WinZip (Windows), StuffIt Expander (Mac) or the tar/gzip commands (UNIX). (TAR 580 kb)

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Weinberg, Z., Perreault, J., Meyer, M. et al. Exceptional structured noncoding RNAs revealed by bacterial metagenome analysis . Nature 462, 656–659 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08586

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