Whalefall-1 RNA motif

Whalefall-1 RNA motif
Consensus secondary structure of Whalefall-1 RNAs
Identifiers
Symbolwf-1
RfamRF01762
Other data
RNA typesRNA
Domain(s)Whale fall metagenome
PDB structuresPDBe

The Whalefall-1 RNA motif (also called wf-1) refers to a conserved RNA structure that was discovered using bioinformatics.[1][2] Structurally, the motif consists of two stem-loops (see diagram), the second of which is often terminated by a CUUG tetraloop, which is an energetically favorable RNA sequence. Whalefall-1 RNAs are found only in DNA extracted from uncultivated bacteria found on whale fall, i.e., a whale carcass. As of 2010, Whalefall-1 RNAs have not been detected in any known, cultivated species of bacteria, and are thus one of several RNAs present in environmental samples.

  1. ^ Weinberg Z, Wang JX, Bogue J, et al. (March 2010). "Comparative genomics reveals 104 candidate structured RNAs from bacteria, archaea and their metagenomes". Genome Biol. 11 (3): R31. doi:10.1186/gb-2010-11-3-r31. PMC 2864571. PMID 20230605.
  2. ^ Weinberg Z, Perreault J, Meyer MM, Breaker RR (December 2009). "Exceptional structured noncoding RNAs revealed by bacterial metagenome analysis". Nature. 462 (7273): 656–9. Bibcode:2009Natur.462..656W. doi:10.1038/nature08586. PMC 4140389. PMID 19956260.