Dynamic partitioning shapes the in vivo organization of the Escherichia coli RNA degradosome
- 1Department of Physics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- 2Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Abstract
The bacterial RNA degradosome is a central mediator of RNA turnover, yet how its components are organized and regulated in living cells remains unclear. Using live-cell single-molecule imaging, we quantified the spatial distribution and dynamics of the four major Escherichia coli degradosome components: RNase E, RhlB, PNPase, and enolase. These proteins occupied distinct membrane-associated and cytoplasmic pools whose relative abundance varied among proteins and changed with physiological state. In particular, PNPase underwent pronounced redistribution between membrane-associated and cytoplasmic states in response to altered RNA availability and growth conditions, whereas RNase E and RhlB remained largely membrane associated. To determine the functional consequences of this organization, we examined the degradation of lacZ reporter transcripts with different translation initiation strengths. PNPase and RhlB preferentially promoted degradation of weakly translated transcripts, whereas strongly translated transcripts were largely insensitive to their loss. Together, these results reveal that the bacterial RNA degradosome is not a static, uniformly assembled molecular machine. Instead, RNA decay is organized through dynamic intracellular partitioning of degradosome components, linking physiological state and translation status to transcript degradation.
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BibTeX
@article{troyer2026dynamic,
title = {{Dynamic partitioning shapes the in vivo organization of the Escherichia coli RNA degradosome}},
author = {Laura Troyer and Yu-Huan Wang and Kevin Wu and Seunghyeon Kim and Sangjin Kim},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1073/pnas.2621525123},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2621525123},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Dynamic partitioning shapes the in vivo organization of the Escherichia coli RNA degradosome
AU - Laura Troyer
AU - Yu-Huan Wang
AU - Kevin Wu
AU - Seunghyeon Kim
AU - Sangjin Kim
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2621525123
UR - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2621525123
AB - The bacterial RNA degradosome is a central mediator of RNA turnover, yet how its components are organized and regulated in living cells remains unclear. Using live-cell single-molecule imaging, we quantified the spatial distribution and dynamics of the four major Escherichia coli degradosome components: RNase E, RhlB, PNPase, and enolase. These proteins occupied distinct membrane-associated and cytoplasmic pools whose relative abundance varied among proteins and changed with physiological state. In particular, PNPase underwent pronounced redistribution between membrane-associated and cytoplasmic states in response to altered RNA availability and growth conditions, whereas RNase E and RhlB remained largely membrane associated. To determine the functional consequences of this organization, we examined the degradation of lacZ reporter transcripts with different translation initiation strengths. PNPase and RhlB preferentially promoted degradation of weakly translated transcripts, whereas strongly translated transcripts were largely insensitive to their loss. Together, these results reveal that the bacterial RNA degradosome is not a static, uniformly assembled molecular machine. Instead, RNA decay is organized through dynamic intracellular partitioning of degradosome components, linking physiological state and translation status to transcript degradation.
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
ER -