FtsZ-DE RNA motif

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "FtsZ-DE RNA motif" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2024) This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; try the Find link tool for suggestions. (December 2021) This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "FtsZ-DE RNA motif" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

ftsZ-DE
Consensus secondary structure and sequence conservation of ftsZ-DE RNA
Identifiers
Symbol	ftsZ-DE
Rfam	RF02985
Other data
RNA type	Gene; sRNA
SO	SO:0001263
PDB structures	PDBe

The ftsZ-DE RNA motif is a conserved RNA structure that was discovered by bioinformatics.^[1] ftsZ-DE motifs are found in bacteria belonging to the genus Fibrobacter.

It is ambiguous whether ftsZ-DE RNAs function as cis-regulatory elements or whether they operate in trans as small RNAs. ftsZ-DE RNAs are consistently located immediately downstream of predicted operons, one of whose genes is predicted as ftsZ. ftsZ genes encode a GTPase that is involved in cell division. This genomic arrangement could suggest that ftsZ-DE RNAs function as cis-regulatory elements as part of the 3' untranslated regions of these operons. However, these locations rarely contain cis-regulatory RNAs in bacteria. Another possibility that was proposed^[1] is that ftsZ-DE RNAs represent an unusual form of Rho-independent transcription terminators that are specific to the under-studied phylum Fibrobacterota, to which Fibrobacter belongs. However, the ftsZ-DE motif exhibits some features that are not found in many Rho-independent terminators, especially that it consists of two hairpins. The function of ftsZ-DE RNAs has not, as of 2018, been established.