Contributions of the Hfq protein to translation regulation by small noncoding RNAs binding to the mRNA coding sequence

Abstract

The bacterial Sm-like protein Hfq is involved in the regulation of translation by small noncoding RNAs (sRNAs), which affect bacterial cell’s response to changing environmental conditions. sRNAs bind to complementary sequences in their target mRNAs to activate or repress translation. The majority of sRNAs bind to the 5ʹ-untranslated mRNA regions. However, recent studies showed that sRNAs can also regulate translation by binding to the mRNA coding sequence, even far downstream of AUG start codon. This review aims to summarize our current understanding of the contributions of Hfq to translation regulation by sRNAs binding the mRNA coding sequence.