# Small RNA Regulation in Bacteria

> **NIH NIH R35** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2021 · $376,777

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Bacteria must sense and respond to rapidly changing and often stressful environments. Their ability to enact
rapid changes in gene expression that alter cell structure and function is key to their survival. In the last twenty
years, it has become abundantly clear that post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in bacteria is
pervasive and represents an important stress response strategy. Small RNAs (sRNAs) that base pair with
mRNAs and regulate transcription elongation, translation, and mRNA stability are now known to be common
mediators of bacterial post-transcriptional regulation. Small RNAs (sRNAs) number from tens to hundreds in
bacterial genomes and carry out diverse regulatory mechanisms, yet the molecular details of their activities and
their specific roles in bacterial physiology and virulence remain poorly understood. My research group has been
engaged in research to address these questions for the last 15 years. Our overall approach is to combine
genomic approaches with classical genetics and biochemistry to study sRNAs from the molecular to the
physiological level in Escherichia coli and Salmonella model systems. Our work has defined the target regulons
of several sRNAs, revealing a number of new molecular mechanisms of sRNA-mediated regulation. We have
uncovered factors that promote hierarchical regulation of multi-target sRNA regulons. We have also found stress
response and metabolic phenotypes for sRNA mutants, linking the molecular mechanisms of regulation to
physiological outcomes. In the next funding period, we will build on a strong and productive foundation of
previous work to continue investigating novel mechanisms of sRNA-dependent regulation in E. coli and
Salmonella. We will extend our work to investigate the prevalence of these regulatory mechanisms and identify
new examples. A strong team of collaborators using a diverse set of techniques will allow us to interrogate sRNA
interactions with target mRNAs on a global scale and at the level of single RNA molecules. This will allow us to
generate quantitative models for in vivo regulation by sRNAs and elucidate an extensive sRNA regulatory
network to produce an sRNA interaction map of greater precision than ever before. We envision continuing to
use studies of sRNAs to connect molecular biology to cell physiology to reveal fundamental new insight into the
biology of microbes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10086294
- **Project number:** 1R35GM139557-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Carin K Vanderpool
- **Activity code:** R35 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $376,777
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-02-15 → 2026-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10086294

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10086294, Small RNA Regulation in Bacteria (1R35GM139557-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10086294. Licensed CC0.

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