The rne-II RNA motif is a conserved RNA

RNA

Ribonucleic acid , or RNA, is one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life....

 structure identified using bioinformatics

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...

. It is detected only in species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 classified within the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Pseudomonadaceae

Pseudomonadaceae

The Pseudomonadaceae is a family of bacteria that includes the genera Azomonas, Azomonotrichon, Azorhizophilus, Azotobacter, Cellvibrio, Mesophilobacter, Pseudomonas , Rhizobacter, Rugamonas, and Serpens...

, a group of gammaproteobacteria

Gammaproteobacteria

Gammaproteobacteria is a class of several medically, ecologically and scientifically important groups of bacteria, such as the Enterobacteriaceae , Vibrionaceae and Pseudomonadaceae. An exceeding number of important pathogens belongs to this class, e.g...

. rne-II RNAs are consistently located in the presumed 5' untranslated regions (5' UTRs) of gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

s that encode Ribonuclease E (RNase E). The RNase E 5' UTR element

RNase E 5' UTR element

In molecular biology, the RNase E 5' UTR element is a cis-acting element located in the 5'UTR of ribonuclease E messenger RNA .RNase E is a key regulatory enzyme in the pathway of mRNA degradation in Escherichia coli. It is able to auto-regulate the degradation of its own mRNA in response to...

 is a previously identified RNA structure that is also found in the 5' UTRs of RNase E genes. However, the latter motif is found only in enterobacteria, and the two motifs have apparently unrelated structure. In view of their differences, it was hypothesized that rne-II RNAs fulfill the same functional role as RNase E 5' UTR elements, which is to regulate the levels of RNase E protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

s by acting as a substrate for RNase E. Thus, when concentrations of RNase E are high, they will degrade their own messenger RNA

Messenger RNA

Messenger RNA is a molecule of RNA encoding a chemical "blueprint" for a protein product. mRNA is transcribed from a DNA template, and carries coding information to the sites of protein synthesis: the ribosomes. Here, the nucleic acid polymer is translated into a polymer of amino acids: a protein...

.