RncO

RncO is a bacterial non-coding RNA regulatory element found in the rnc leader sequence. The rnc operon is negatively auto-regulated by transcript stability. rnc, the first gene in the operon codes for RNase III which cleaves the long rncO stem II leading to transcript degradation and a reduction in translation.^[1] Matsunaga et al. showed that RNase III cleavage can initiate rnc transcript decay independently of rnc gene translation.^[2] Further work has established that rncO structure and function is conserved in Salmonella typhimurium.^[3]

rncO
Predicted secondary structure and sequence conservation of rncO
Identifiers
Symbol	rncO
Rfam	RF00552
Other data
RNA type	Cis-reg
Domain(s)	Bacteria
SO	SO:0000233
PDB structures	PDBe

Structure

Functionally the first 215 nucleotides of the rnc leader have been shown to be sufficient. Within this region three stem-loops were identified. Stem-loop II is cleaved by RNase III, whereas stem-loops I and III are important for stability.^[1]