Figure 9.

Effects of Hfq on gene silencing by afsRNAs. (A) The target-recognition sequences. (B) The gene silencing effects of various afsRNAs were examined in hfq⁺ and hfq⁻ cells. ß-Galactosidase activities were expressed relative to that of cells containing the vector and treated with 1 mM IPTG for each strain. Values are presented as an average of at least three independent experiments. (C) Total cellular RNA from was prepared from IPTG-treated hfq⁻ cells and subjected to northern blot analysis as for Figure 2B. Total cellular RNA from hfq⁺ cells expressing ARlacZ1 or ARlacZ9N was used as an internal control for comparing RNA expression levels between hfq⁺ and hfq⁻ cells.