Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access originally published online on August 27, 2008
Nucleic Acids Research 2008 36(19):e124; doi:10.1093/nar/gkn545
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Nucleic Acids Research, 2008, Vol. 36, No. 19 e124
© 2008 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Methods Online |
Design of simple synthetic RNA thermometers for temperature-controlled gene expression in Escherichia coli
Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Pflanzenphysiologie, Am Mühlenberg 1, D-14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +49 0 331 567 8700; Fax: +49 0 331 567 8701; Email: rbock{at}mpimp-golm.mpg.de
Received July 16, 2008. Revised August 7, 2008. Accepted August 8, 2008.
RNA thermometers are thermosensors that regulate gene expression by temperature-induced changes in RNA conformation. Naturally occurring RNA thermometers exhibit complex secondary structures which are believed to undergo a series of gradual structural changes in response to temperature shifts. Here, we report the de novo design of considerably simpler RNA thermometers that provide useful RNA-only tools to regulate bacterial gene expression by a shift in the growth temperature. We show that a single small stem-loop structure containing the ribosome binding site is sufficient to construct synthetic RNA thermometers that work efficiently at physiological temperatures. Our data suggest that the thermometers function by a simple melting mechanism and thus provide minimum size on/off switches to experimentally induce or repress gene expression by temperature.