Figure 3.

The efficiency of ribosome recruitment is the primary determinant for the level of mature hbsΔ mRNA. (A) Schematic of the B. subtilis hbsΔ construct. Labeling is as in Figure 1. The predicted interactions with the 3′ end of 16S rRNA for the hbsΔ SDwt, and SDstrong and SDweak mutant variants are indicated underneath the schematic. (B) Northern blot of total RNA isolated from strains carrying the hbsΔ SDwt, and hbsΔ SDstrong and hbsΔ SDweak mutant plasmids at different times after rifampicin addition (n = 2). Blots were first probed with oligo CC1997 (hbs), shown as a red line in panel A, and then reprobed with oligo HP246 (5S rRNA) as a loading control. Calculated half-lives of the major transcripts are given underneath the blot. Half-lives >30 min are referred to as stable. Average decay curves are shown in Supplementary Figure S1.