Revision as of 07:12, 7 October 2018

Heat-inducible RNA-based thermosensor-1

A RNA thermosensor that can be used for temperature sensitive post-transcriptional regulation which is based on the change of RNA sencondary structure. The heat-induced RNA thermosensors can initiate translation of downstream genes at high temperatures.

Usage and Biology

Heat-induced RNA thermosensors are RNA-based genetic control systems that sense temperature changes. At low temperatures, the mRNA adopts a stem-loop conformation that masks the ribosome binding site [Shine–Dalgarno (SD) sequence] within the 5′-untranslated region (5′-UTR) and, in this way, prevents ribosome binding and translation. At elevated temperatures, the RNA secondary structure melts locally, thereby giving the ribosomes access to the ribosome binding site to initiate translation. Whereas natural RNA thermosensors have a relatively complicated secondary structure with multiple stems, hairpin loops, and bulges. The highly complex RNA secondary structures into which most naturally occurring RNA thermosensors can be folded has led to the hypothesis that RNA thermosensors may not function as simple on/off switches. Our team designed synthetic heat-induced RNA thermosensors that are considerably simpler than naturally occurring thermosensors and can be exploited as convenient on/off switches of gene expression.

Characterization

The thermosensor is constructed on the pSB1C3 vector by goldengate assembly. As shown below, the measurement device is composed of Anderson promotor (BBa_J23104), thermosensor (BBa_K2541001) and sfGFP(BBa_K2541400). We measured the sfGFP expression to get the actual melting temperature of the heat-induced RNA thermosensor.

As shown in the figure, the thermosensor melting temperature range is [ ]. Our data show that efficient RNA thermosensors can be built from a single small RNA stem-loop structure masking the ribosome binding site, thus providing useful RNA-based toolkit for the regulation of gene expression.

Sequence and Features