RNase J depletion leads to massive changes in mRNA abundance in Helicobacter pylori

This process is controlled by ribonucleases that have different target specificities. In the bacterial pathogen Helicobacter pylori , an exo- and endoribonuclease RNase J is essential for growth.

To explore the role of RNase J in H. pylori , we identified its putative targets at a global scale using next generation RNA sequencing. We found that strong depletion for RNase J led to a massive increase in the steady-state levels of non-rRNAs. mRNAs and RNAs antisense to open reading frames were most affected with over 80% increased more than 2-fold. Non-coding RNAs expressed in the intergenic regions were much less affected by RNase J depletion.