Rho and NusG suppress pervasive antisense transcription in Escherichia coli [ChIP-chip].
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ABSTRACT: Despite the prevalence of antisense transcripts in bacterial transcriptomes, little is known about how their synthesis is controlled. We report that a major function of the Escherichia coli termination factor Rho and its co-factor NusG is suppression of ubiquitous antisense transcription genome-wide. Rho binds C-rich unstructured nascent RNA (high C/G ratio) prior to its ATP-dependent dissociation of transcription complexes. NusG is required for efficient termination at minority subsets (~20%) of both antisense and sense Rho-dependent terminators with lower C/G ratio sequences. In contrast, a widely studied nusA deletion proposed to compromise Rho-dependent termination had no effect on antisense or sense Rho-dependent terminators in vivo. Global co-localization of the nucleoid-associated protein H-NS with Rho-dependent terminators and genetic interactions between hns and rho suggest that H-NS aids Rho in suppression of antisense transcription. The combined actions of Rho, NusG, and H-NS appear to be analogous to the Sen1-Nrd1-Nab3 and nucleosome systems that suppress antisense transcription in eukaryotes. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiments were performed using antibodies against RNA polymerase (RNAP; Beta subunit) in wild-type cells or cells deleted for hns, nusG, or a partial deletion of nusA. Differentially labeled ChIP DNA and genomic DNA were competitively hybridized to an E. coli K-12 MG1655 tiling array with overlapping probes at ~12bp spacing across the entire genome. The series contains 12 datasets.
ORGANISM(S): Escherichia coli K-12
SUBMITTER: Jason Peters
PROVIDER: E-GEOD-41936 | biostudies-arrayexpress |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress
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