PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Konrad U Förstner AU - Carina M Reuscher AU - Kerstin Haberzettl AU - Lennart Weber AU - Gabriele Klug TI - RNase E cleavage shapes the transcriptome of <em>Rhodobacter sphaeroides</em> and strongly impacts phototrophic growth AID - 10.26508/lsa.201800080 DP - 2018 Aug 01 TA - Life Science Alliance PG - e201800080 VI - 1 IP - 4 4099 - https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/1/4/e201800080.short 4100 - https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/1/4/e201800080.full SO - Life Sci. Alliance2018 Aug 01; 1 AB - Bacteria adapt to changing environmental conditions by rapid changes in their transcriptome. This is achieved not only by adjusting rates of transcription but also by processing and degradation of RNAs. We applied TIER-Seq (transiently inactivating an endoribonuclease followed by RNA-Seq) for the transcriptome-wide identification of RNase E cleavage sites and of 5′ RNA ends, which are enriched when RNase E activity is reduced in Rhodobacter sphaeroides. These results reveal the importance of RNase E for the maturation and turnover of mRNAs, rRNAs, and sRNAs in this guanine-cytosine-rich α-proteobacterium, some of the latter have well-described functions in the oxidative stress response. In agreement with this, a role of RNase E in the oxidative stress response is demonstrated. A remarkably strong phenotype of a mutant with reduced RNase E activity was observed regarding the formation of photosynthetic complexes and phototrophic growth, whereas there was no effect on chemotrophic growth.