Up to 90% of eukaryotic genomes are transcribed. Only ~ 2% of these transcripts encode proteins, while remaining 98% are ncRNAs [1,2]. ncRNAs can be categorized into infrastructural ncRNAs and regulatory ncRNAs. Constitutively expressed infrastructural ncRNAs include ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), transfer RNAs (tRNAs), small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs), and small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs). Based on their si...

Evidence is accumulating that small, noncoding RNAs are important regulatory molecules. Computational and experimental searches have led to the identification of 60 small RNA genes in Escherichia coli. However, most of these studies focused on the intergenic regions and assumed that small RNAs were .50 nt. Thus, the previous screens missed small RNAs encoded on the antisense strand of protein-c...

Non-coding RNAs are involved in a multitude of cellular processes but the biochemical function of many small non-coding RNAs remains unclear. The family of small non-coding Y RNAs is conserved in vertebrates and related RNAs are present in some prokaryotic species. Y RNAs are also homologous to the newly identified family of non-coding stem-bulge RNAs (sbRNAs) in nematodes, for which potential ...

Diabetes-associated complications, such as retinopathy, nephropathy, cardiomyopathy, and atherosclerosis, the main consequences of long-term hyperglycemia, often lead to organ dysfunction, disability, increased mortality. A common denominator these complications is myofibroblast-driven excessive deposition extracellular matrix proteins. Although fibroblast appears be primary source myofibroblas...

An open research field in cellular regulation is the assumed crosstalk between RNAs, metabolic enzymes, and metabolites, also known as REM hypothesis. High-throughput assays have produced extensive interactome data with enzymes frequently found hits, but only a few examples been biochemically validated, deficits especially prokaryotes. Therefore, we rationally selected nineteen Escherichia coli...