Endonuclease decay of nonsense-containing ␤-globin mRNA in erythroid cells generates 5-truncated products that were reported previously to have a cap or caplike structure. We confirmed that this 5 modification is indistinguishable from the cap on full-length mRNA, and Western blotting, immunoprecipitation, and active-site labeling identified a population of capping enzymes in the cytoplasm of erythroid and nonerythroid cells. Cytoplasmic capping enzyme sediments in a 140-kDa complex that contains a kinase which, together with capping enzyme, converts 5-monophosphate RNA into 5-GpppX RNA. Capping enzyme shows diffuse and punctate staining throughout the cytoplasm, and its staining does not overlap with P bodies or stress granules. Expression of inactive capping enzyme in a form that is restricted to the cytoplasm reduced the ability of cells to recover from oxidative stress, thus supporting a role for capping in the cytoplasm and suggesting that some mRNAs may be stored in an uncapped state.The addition of the 5Ј cap is the first posttranscriptional step in pre-mRNA processing (8,25), and the cap plays a central role in subsequent steps of pre-mRNA processing, export, surveillance, translation, decay, and microRNA silencing through its binding by CBP80 (9) and eIF4E (22). The decay of most mammalian mRNAs begins with poly(A) shortening, after which the cap is removed and the body of the mRNA undergoes 3Ј-5Ј decay by the cytoplasmic exosome or 5Ј-3Ј decay by Xrn1 (7).While the action of a cytoplasmic poly(A) polymerase can restore a shortened poly(A) tail to one capable of supporting efficient translation (13), there is no evidence for the reversibility of decapping (30). In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, decapping is the rate-limiting step in mRNA decay, and this is followed by rapid 5Ј-3Ј degradation of the mRNA body by Xrn1 (7). Like in yeast, mammalian Dcp2 and Xrn1 are together recovered by immunoprecipitation and colocalize in P bodies (4), suggesting that unstable mRNAs decay similarly. However, until recently, no one had actually quantified the polarity of mammalian mRNA decay. Using a sensitive fluorescent resonance energy transfer-based assay to quantify the decay of each exon of a ␤-globin reporter mRNA, we found that the 5Ј and 3Ј ends decay simultaneously and showed that these processes are functionally linked (19). More surprisingly, we found that 5Ј decay is slow and relatively inefficient.mRNA containing a premature termination codon (PTC) is degraded by a process termed mRNA surveillance or nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. While it was previously thought that PTC-containing mRNAs are degraded while still associated with the nucleus (17), several recent studies point to P bodies as the major site of their decay (26, 31). An endonuclease activity in SMG6 also appears to be involved in this process, but Xrn1 must be knocked down to visualize downstream decay products (5, 10).Mutations in the ␤-globin gene comprise one of the largest cohorts of inherited disorders, and a PTC in exon 1 or 2 activates nonsense-...

RNase LS was originally identified as a potential antagonist of bacteriophage T4 infection. When T4 dmd is defective, RNase LS activity rapidly increases after T4 infection and cleaves T4 mRNAs to antagonize T4 reproduction. Here we show that rnlA, a structural gene of RNase LS, encodes a novel toxin, and that rnlB (formally yfjO), located immediately downstream of rnlA, encodes an antitoxin against RnlA. Ectopic expression of RnlA caused inhibition of cell growth and rapid degradation of mRNAs in DrnlAB cells. On the other hand, RnlB neutralized these RnlA effects. Furthermore, overexpression of RnlB in wild-type cells could completely suppress the growth defect of a T4 dmd mutant, that is, excess RnlB inhibited RNase LS activity. Pull-down analysis showed a specific interaction between RnlA and RnlB. Compared to RnlA, RnlB was extremely unstable, being degraded by ClpXP and Lon proteases, and this instability may increase RNase LS activity after T4 infection. All of these results suggested that rnlA-rnlB define a new toxin-antitoxin (TA) system. B ACTERIAL toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are composed of a stable toxin and an unstable antitoxin (reviewed in Engelberg-Kulka and Glaser 1999). There are two different types of TA systems depending on the nature of antitoxin. In the type I systems, antitoxin is a small regulatory RNA that blocks the translation of toxin (Gerdes and Wagner 2007). In the type II systems, both toxin and antitoxin are proteins and antitoxin neutralizes toxin by direct interaction (Zhang et al. 2003a). When expression from type II TA loci is impaired by various kinds of stresses, such as amino acid starvation or translational inhibition by antibiotics (Christensen et al. 2001;Sat et al. 2001), antitoxin is rapidly decreased and consequently the level of toxin unbound (UB) with antitoxin is increased, leading to the activation of toxin (reviewed in Gerdes et al. 2005).RNase LS contributes to mRNA turnover in Escherichia coli, although its effect seems modest in comparison to that of a major RNase, RNase E (Otsuka and Yonesaki 2005). Recently we found one important role for this RNase in the physiology of E. coli cells: it targets cyaA mRNA (encoding adenylate cyclase) to reduce its expression (Iwamoto et al. 2008). Interestingly, the activity of RNase LS becomes much stronger after T4 infection ( We surveyed the E. coli DNA sequence in the vicinity of rnlA and found a promoter-like sequence, the open reading frame (ORF) of rnlA, the ORF of the downstream gene rnlB (formerly yfjO), and a terminator-like sequence consistently aligned in this order, suggesting that rnlA and rnlB form an operon. In addition, the terminal region in the rnlA ORF and the start region of the rnlB ORF overlap by 7 bp, implying an intimate coupling in their expression. These features prompted us to inquire whether rnlB is involved in RNase LS activity. In this study, we demonstrate that RnlB suppresses RNase LS activity. We also demonstrated that expression of RnlA in the absence of RnlB degrades E. coli bulk ...

SummaryEnterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 harbours a cryptic plasmid, pOSAK1, that carries only three ORFs: mobA (involved in plasmid mobilization), ORF1 and ORF2. Predicted proteins encoded by these two ORFs were found to share a weak homology with RnlA and RnlB, respectively, a toxin-antitoxin system encoded on the E. coli K-12 chromosome. Here, we report that lsoA (ORF1) encodes a toxin and lsoB (ORF2) an antitoxin. In spite of the homologies, RnlB and LsoB functioned as antitoxins against only their cognate toxins and not interchangeably with each other. Interestingly, T4 phage Dmd suppressed the toxicities of both RnlA and LsoA by direct interaction, the first example of a phage with an antitoxin against multiple toxins.

Bacteriophages have strict host specificity and the step of adsorption is one of key factors for determining host specificity. Here, we systematically examined the interaction between the Escherichia coli receptors lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and outer membrane protein C (OmpC), and the long tail fibers of bacteriophage T4. Using a variety of LPS mutants, we demonstrated that T4 has no specificity for the sugar sequence of the outer core (one of three LPS regions) in the presence of OmpC but, in the absence of OmpC, can adsorb to a specific LPS which has only one or two glucose residues without a branch. These results strengthen the idea that T4 adsorbs to E. coli via two distinct modes, OmpC‐dependent and OmpC‐independent, suggested by previous reports (Prehm et al. 1976; Yu and Mizushima 1982). Isolation and characterization of the T4 mutants Nik (No infection to K‐12 strain), Nib (No infection to B strain), and Arl (altered recognition of LPS) identified amino acids of the long tail fiber that play important roles in the interaction with OmpC or LPS, suggesting that the top surface of the distal tip head domain of T4 long tail fibers interacts with LPS and its lateral surface interacts with OmpC.

Retrospective investigations of odontomas in Japanese children and one recurrent case were carried out. Thirty-nine cases of odontoma in 38 children were treated in the Paediatric Dentistry Clinic of Niigata University Dental Hospital between September 1979 and December 2002. The patients consisted of 23 males and 15 females and their ages ranged from 1 year 2 months to 14 years old. The chief complaints were delayed tooth eruption in 19 cases (five: primary teeth, 14: permanent teeth), retention of primary teeth in 11, incidentally found on the radiographic examination in eight cases, and swelling of the jaw in one case. Thirty-four cases (87%) were associated with tooth eruption disturbances. The most frequently affected region was the maxillary anterior region. Treatment consisted of surgical removal of odontomas in all cases, after which if the impacted teeth did not erupt, exposure of the crown and/or orthodontic traction was performed. Pathological diagnoses were compound odontoma in 30 cases, complex odontoma (n = 7), and compound and complex odontoma (n = 2). A retrospective study of the radiographs revealed the developing process of odontomas in four cases and odontoma disturbed tooth eruption since the early uncalcified developing stage. A recurrent case was a boy aged 6 years 5 months in whom the first surgical removal of odontoma was performed at the age of 1 year 8 months. Recurrence of an odontoma is very rare, but in very young children odontomas are in the early developing stages, containing uncalcified portions, so it is important to perform periodical observations until the succedaneous teeth erupt.