We have examined the expression of the rpsO-pnp operon in an RNase III (rnc) mutant of Streptomyces coelicolor. Western blotting demonstrated that polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) levels increased in the rnc mutant, JSE1880, compared with the parental strain, M145, and this observation was confirmed by polymerization assays. It was observed that rpsO-pnp mRNA levels increased in the rnc mutant by 1.6-to 4-fold compared with M145. This increase was observed in exponential, transition, and stationary phases, and the levels of the readthrough transcript, initiated upstream of rpsO in the rpsO-pnp operon; the pnp transcript, initiated in the rpsO-pnp intergenic region; and the rpsO transcript all increased. The increased levels of these transcripts in JSE1880 reflected increased chemical half-lives for each of the three. We demonstrated further that overexpression of the rpsO-pnp operon led to significantly higher levels of PNPase activity in JSE1880 compared to M145, reflecting the likelihood that PNPase expression is autoregulated in an RNase IIIdependent manner in S. coelicolor. To explore further the increase in the level of the pnp transcript initiated in the intergenic region in JSE1880, we utilized that transcript as a substrate in assays employing purified S. coelicolor RNase III. These assays revealed the presence of hitherto-undiscovered sites of RNase III cleavage of the pnp transcript. The position of those sites was determined by primer extension, and they were shown to be situated in the loops of a stem-loop structure.Polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) is a 3Ј-5Ј-exoribonuclease that functions in the phosphorolytic degradation of RNA molecules in bacteria and in eukaryotic organelles (14,21). In Escherichia coli and other bacteria, PNPase plays an important role in the degradation of mRNAs. Thus, endonucleolytic cleavage of RNA molecules generates 3Ј ends that are substrates for the action of PNPase and RNase II, an exonuclease that functions hydrolytically (8,12,28). PNPase plays another role in E. coli, at least under some circumstances. As is the case in eukaryotes, the 3Ј ends of at least some RNA molecules in bacteria are polyadenylated (31, 32). Polyadenylation facilitates the degradation of RNAs in bacteria (22,24,27). While the major enzyme responsible for RNA polyadenylation in E. coli is poly(A) polymerase I (PAP I [7]), mutants of E. coli lacking PAP I still retain the ability to polyadenylate RNAs (26), indicating that there is at least one other polyadenylating enzyme in those cells. Mohanty and Kushner have presented evidence indicating that the second PAP in E. coli is none other than PNPase (25). They argue that under appropriate conditions in vivo, PNPase can serve to degrade RNAs or synthesize poly(A) tails and that this enzyme is responsible for the G, C, and U residues that are found at low frequency in the poly(A) tails of RNAs from wild-type E. coli (25).PNPase structure, function, and expression have been studied extensively in species of the soil-dwelling, antibiotic-pro...