RNA thermometer An RNA thermometer (or RNA thermosensor) is a temperature-sensitive non-coding RNA molecule which regulates gene expression. RNA thermometers often regulate genes required during either a heat shock or cold shock response, but have been impli ...

s regulate

gene expression Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. ...

in response to temperature allowing pathogens like ''

Yersinia ''Yersinia'' is a genus of bacteria in the family Yersiniaceae. ''Yersinia'' species are Gram-negative, coccobacilli bacteria, a few micrometers long and fractions of a micrometer in diameter, and are facultative anaerobes. Some members of ''Ye ...

'' to switch on silent genes after entering the host organism. Usually, RNA thermometers are located in the

5'UTR The 5′ untranslated region (also known as 5′ UTR, leader sequence, transcript leader, or leader RNA) is the region of a messenger RNA (mRNA) that is directly upstream from the initiation codon. This region is important for the regulation of ...

, but an

intergenic An intergenic region is a stretch of DNA sequences located between genes. Intergenic regions may contain functional elements and junk DNA. ''Inter''genic regions should not be confused with ''intra''genic regions (or introns), which are non-cod ...

RNA thermometer was found in ''Yersinia pseudotuberculosis.'' The ''LcrF'' RNA thermometer together with the thermo-labile YmoA protein activates synthesis of the most crucial virulence activato
LcrF
(VirF). The RNA thermosensor sequence is 100% identical in all human

pathogenic In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a ger ...

''Yersinia'' species.

References

Non-coding RNA Cis-regulatory RNA elements {{gene-stub