While iron is essential to sustain growth, its excess can be detrimental to the cell by
generating highly toxic reactive oxygen species. Regulation of iron homeostasis thus plays a …

Sequencing-based studies have illuminated increased transcriptional complexity within the
genome structure of bacteria and have resulted in the identification of many small regulatory …

Most of the sequenced bacterial genomes contain a gene encoding a protein known as Hfq
that resembles the eukaryotic RNA-binding proteins of the LSm family. It was originally …

The increasing numbers of characterized base-pairing small RNAs (sRNAs) and the
identification of these regulators in a broad range of bacteria are allowing comparisons …

Propionate is an abundant catabolite in nature and represents a rich potential source of
carbon for the organisms that can utilize it. However, propionate and propionate-derived …

Iron (Fe) is a double‐edged sword for most living organisms. Although it is essential for the
catalytic activity of a large number of enzymes, ferrous iron (Fe2+) becomes cytotoxic in the …

Infectious diseases caused by bacterial pathogens still constitute one of the major human
health threats (1). Within the host body, pathogenic bacteria face a wide variety of hostile …

Neisseria meningitidis is a human commensal that can also cause life-threatening
meningitis and septicemia. Despite growing evidence for RNA-based regulation in …

Hfq has emerged in recent years as a master regulator of gene expression in bacteria,
mainly due to its ability to mediate the interaction of small noncoding RNAs with their mRNA …

Zinc is a bivalent cation essential for bacterial growth and metabolism. The human pathogen
Neisseria meningitidis expresses a homologue of the Zinc uptake regulator Zur, which has …