Pervasive transcription: detecting functional RNAs in bacteria

摘要

Pervasive, or genome-wide, transcription has been reported in all domains of life. In bacteria, most pervasive transcription occurs antisense to protein-coding transcripts, although recently a new class of pervasive RNAs was identified that originatesfrom within annotated genes. Initially considered to be non-functional transcriptional noise, pervasive transcription is increasingly being recognized as important in regulating gene expression. The function of pervasive transcription is an extensivelydebated question in the field of transcrip-tomics and regulatory RNA biology. Here, we highlight the most recent contributions addressing the purpose of pervasive transcription in bacteria and discuss their implications.