Elevated levels of Era GTPase improve growth, 16S rRNA processing, and 70S ribosome assembly of Escherichia coli lacking highly conserved multifunctional YbeY endoribonuclease

• Main Authors: Ghosal, Anubrata (Author), Babu, Vignesh M.P (Author), Walker, Graham C. (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology, 2020-02-28T21:51:52Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

YbeY is a highly conserved, multifunctional endoribonuclease that plays a significant role in ribosome biogenesis and has several additional roles. Here we show that overexpression of the conserved GTPase Era in Escherichia coli partially suppresses the growth defect of a ΔybeY strain while improving 16S rRNA processing and 70S ribosome assembly. This suppression requires both the ability of Era to hydrolyze GTP and the function of three exoribonucleases, RNase II, RNase R, and RNase PH, suggesting a model for the action of Era. Overexpression of Vibrio cholerae Era similarly partially suppresses the defects of an E. coli ΔybeY strain, indicating that this property of Era is conserved in bacteria other than E. coli.
National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant GM31030)
National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant P30ES002109)