{"doi":"10.1016/j.jmb.2025.169612","title":"Metastable Folding of Bacillus subtilis glmS Ribozyme Modulates Turnover by RNase J1","abstract":"• RNase J exonuclease must rapidly degrade the glmS mRNA after ribozyme self-cleavage. • RNA structure blocks RNase J loading and initiation at uncapped 5′ ends. • RNase J becomes processive, fast and insensitive to structure after 15 nucleotides. • Metastable folding during transcription and in low Mg 2+ enables ribozyme regulation. Rapid turnover of glmS mRNA in Bacillus subtilis by 5′-3’ exoribonuclease RNase J is essential for feedback regulation of glucosamine-6-phosphate (GlcN6P) synthase expression, upon self-cleavage of a GlcN6P-activated ribozyme in the glmS 5′ UTR. We used biochemical assays and single molecule fluorescence microscopy to show that initiation of RNase J decay is inefficient and requires approximately 15 5′ unpaired nucleotides to form a processive exonuclease complex that is insensitive to downstream RNA structure. When stably folded, the cleaved glmS ribozyme blocks RNase J initiation. However, co-transcriptional ribozyme cleavage and physiological Mg 2+ levels increase decay by weakening the ribozyme structure. At 22 ˚C, the processive velocity of RNase J, 23 ± 8 nt/s, is equal or faster than transcription, indicating that RNase J has the potential to catch elongating polymerases. The results show how the folding stability of 5′ mRNA structure contributes to RNase J recognition and the control of mRNA half-life.","journal":"Journal of Molecular Biology","year":2025,"id":537695,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9471,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":396831,"name":"Sarah A. Woodson","orcid":"0000-0003-0170-1987","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":676087,"name":"Yuan Lou","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":52,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:52:16.891390Z","pmid":"41448347","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}