原核生物中小RNA的功能及研究进展

The Function and Advance of Small RNA in Prokaryote

在原核生物基因组中,除了tRNA、rRNA和mRNA这3种我们很熟悉的RNA以外,目前已经知道还含有许多编码非常规调控的RNA。这些RNA的长度为50～400核苷酸,通常由原核生物的基因间区编码,但并不翻译成蛋白质,因此被称为非编码小RNA(sRNA),简称小RNA或非编码RNA。近年来,随着生物信息学和分子生物学技术的不断发展,在原核生物体内陆续发现了上百种sRNA分子,这些sRNA分子具有多样的生物学功能,作为一类新发现的基因表达调控子已经引起了高度的重视。

Prokaryotic small RNA（sRNA） that are not ribosomal transfer or messenger RNAs were initially identified in the intergenic regions.Small RNA is a kind of newly discovered 50～400 nt RNAs that do not encodes proteins.In recent years,many computational strategies have identified hundreds of sRNA candidates in prokaryote and these sRNA have many kinds of biological functions.Thus research on the function of sRNA is very important nowadays.