Mechanism of decay of the cry1Aa mRNA in Bacillus subtilis

Abstract

We undertook the study of the decay process of the cry1Aa mRNA of Bacillus thuringiensis expressed in B. subtilis. The cry1Aa transcript is a 3.7-kb mRNA expressed during sporulation whose transcriptional control has previously been studied in both B. subtilis and B. thuringiensis. We found that the cry1Aa mRNA has a half-life of around 9 min and that its decay occurs through endoribonucleolytic cleavages which result in three groups of high-molecular-weight mRNA intermediates ranging in size from 2.7 to 0.5 kb. A comparative study carried out with Escherichia coli showed a similar pattern of degradation intermediates. Primer extension analysis carried out on RNA from B. subtilis revealed that most cleavages occur within two regions located toward the 5' and 3' ends of the mRNA. The most prominent processing site observed for the cry1Aa mRNA isolated from B. subtilis is only two bases away from that occurring on RNA isolated from E. coli. Most cleavage sites occur at seemingly single-stranded RNA segments rich in A and U nucleotides, suggesting that a common and conserved mechanism may process the cry1Aa mRNA.