Downloaded from rnajournal.cshlp.org on September 29, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press RNA (Report) RNA/2020/077313 Revised A rare bacterial RNA motif is implicated in the regulation of the purF gene whose encoded enzyme synthesizes phosphoribosylamine Sarah N. Malkowski,1 Ruben M. Atilho,2 Etienne B. Greenlee,3 Christina E. Weinberg,3,5 Ronald R. Breaker2,3,4 1Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8103, USA 2Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8103, USA 3Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8103, USA 4Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8103, USA 5Current address: Institute for Biochemistry, Leipzig University, Brüderstraße 34, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Corresponding author: Ronald R. Breaker,
[email protected]. KEYWORDS: aptamer; gene control; noncoding RNA; PRA; purine; ribose Downloaded from rnajournal.cshlp.org on September 29, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Malkowski et al. and Breaker Candidate PRA Regulatory RNA ABSTRACT The Fibro-purF motif is a putative structured noncoding RNA domain that was discovered previously in species of Fibrobacter by employing comparative sequence analysis methods. An updated bioinformatics search yielded a total of only 30 unique-sequence representatives, exclusively found upstream of the purF gene that codes for the enzyme amidophosphoribosyltransferase. This enzyme synthesizes the compound 5-phospho-D- ribosylamine (PRA), which is the first committed step in purine biosynthesis. The consensus model for Fibro-purF motif RNAs includes a predicted three-stem junction that carries numerous conserved nucleotide positions within the regions joining the stems.