定量生物学中心

学术报告

题目： Small RNA Regulation of Quorum Sensing in Vibrios

报告人： 冯莉惠博士

         美国华盛顿大学圣路易分校 博士后

时间：2015-3-25（周三），13:00-14:00

地点：北京大学老化学楼东配楼101报告厅

主持人：定量生物学中心，汤超教授

摘要:

Quorum sensing is a cell-cell communication process that bacteria use to transition between individual and social lifestyles. In vibrios, homologous small RNAs called the QrrsRNAs function at the center of quorum-sensing pathways. The QrrsRNAs regulate multiple mRNA targets including those encoding the quorum-sensing regulatory components luxR, luxO, luxM, and aphA. Combining bacterial genetics and biochemistry,I found that a representative Qrr, Qrr3, uses four distinct mechanisms to control its particular targets: the Qrr3 sRNA represses luxR through catalytic degradation, represses luxM through coupled degradation, represses luxO through sequestration, and activates aphA by revealing the ribosome binding site while the sRNA itself is degraded. Qrr3 forms different base-pairing interactions with each mRNA target, and the particular pairing strategy determines which regulatory mechanism occurs. Combined mathematical modeling and experiments show that the specific Qrr regulatory mechanism employed governs the potency, dynamics, and competition of target mRNA regulation, which in turn, defines the overall quorum-sensing response.