FTHFS RNA motif

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FTHFS
Consensus secondary structure and sequence conservation of FTHFS RNA
Identifiers
Symbol	FTHFS
Rfam	RF02981
Other data
RNA type	Cis-reg
SO	SO:0005836
PDB structures	PDBe

The FTHFS RNA motif is a conserved RNA structure that was discovered by bioinformatics.^[1] FTHFS motifs are found in metagenomic sequences derived from samples of the human gut.

FTHFS motif RNAs likely function as cis-regulatory elements, in view of their positions upstream of protein-coding genes. FTHFS RNAs are consistently located upstream of genes encoding formate-tetrahydrofolate ligase, which produces 10-formyltetrahydrofolate. Such genes are also very commonly regulated by the previously established ZMP/ZTP riboswitch. These ZMP/ZTP-sensing riboswitches detect a shortage of formyltetrahydrofolate by measuring the levels of ZMP and or its triphosphorylated form ZTP; because formyltetrahydrofolate is heavily used in the de novo purine synthesis pathway, formyltetrahydrofolate starvation leads to a buildup of the purine intermediate ZMP, or the result of its triphosphorylation, ZTP. It was, however, noted^[1] that the secondary structure of the FTHFS motif is simpler than many riboswitches, and it is less clear if this motif represents a promising riboswitch candidate.