Kinetics of polynucleotide phosphorylase: comparison of enzymes from Streptomyces and Escherichia coli and effects of nucleoside diphosphates.

We examined the activity of polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) from Streptomyces coelicolor, Streptomyces antibioticus, and Escherichia coli in phosphorolysis using substrates derived from the rpsO-pnp operon of S. coelicolor. The Streptomyces and E.

A phylogeny of bacterial RNA nucleotidyltransferases: Bacillus halodurans contains two tRNA nucleotidyltransferases.

We have analyzed the distribution of RNA nucleotidyltransferases from the family that includes poly(A) polymerases (PAP) and tRNA nucleotidyltransferases (TNT) in 43 bacterial species. Genes of several bacterial species encode only one member of the nucleotidyltransferase superfamily (NTSF), and if that protein functions as a TNT, those organisms may not contain a poly(A) polymerase I like that of Escherichia coli. The genomes of several of the species examined encode more than one member of the nucleotidyltransferase superfamily.

The absB gene encodes a double strand-specific endoribonuclease that cleaves the read-through transcript of the rpsO-pnp operon in Streptomyces coelicolor.

The absB locus of Streptomyces coelicolor encodes a homolog of bacterial RNase III. We cloned and overexpressed the absB gene product and purified a decahistidine-tagged version of the protein. We show here that AbsB is active against double-stranded RNA transcripts derived from synthetic DNAs but is inactive with single-stranded homopolymers.