{"doi":"10.3390/microorganisms9020389","title":"Ribonuclease J-Mediated mRNA Turnover Modulates Cell Shape, Metabolism and Virulence in Corynebacterium diphtheriae","abstract":"Controlled RNA degradation is a crucial process in bacterial cell biology for maintaining proper transcriptome homeostasis and adaptation to changing environments. mRNA turnover in many Gram-positive bacteria involves a specialized ribonuclease called RNase J (RnJ). To date, however, nothing is known about this process in the diphtheria-causative pathogen Corynebacterium diphtheriae, nor is known the identity of this ribonuclease in this organism. Here, we report that C. diphtheriae DIP1463 encodes a predicted RnJ homolog, comprised of a conserved N-terminal β-lactamase domain, followed by β-CASP and C-terminal domains. A recombinant protein encompassing the β-lactamase domain alone displays 5′-exoribonuclease activity, which is abolished by alanine-substitution of the conserved catalytic residues His186 and His188. Intriguingly, deletion of DIP1463/rnj in C. diphtheriae reduces bacterial growth and generates cell shape abnormality with markedly augmented cell width. Comparative RNA-seq analysis revealed that RnJ controls a large regulon encoding many factors predicted to be involved in biosynthesis, regulation, transport, and iron acquisition. One upregulated gene in the ∆rnj mutant is ftsH, coding for a membrane protease (FtsH) involved in cell division, whose overexpression in the wild-type strain also caused cell-width augmentation. Critically, the ∆rnj mutant is severely attenuated in virulence in a Caenorhabditis elegans model of infection, while the FtsH-overexpressing and toxin-less strains exhibit full virulence as the wild-type strain. Evidently, RNase J is a key ribonuclease in C. diphtheriae that post-transcriptionally influences the expression of numerous factors vital to corynebacterial cell physiology and virulence. Our findings have significant implications for basic biological processes and mechanisms of corynebacterial pathogenesis.","journal":"Microorganisms","year":2021,"id":183232,"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":13,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9524,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":664844,"name":"Minh Tan Nguyen","orcid":"0000-0001-8704-0547","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":695588,"name":"Yiwei Chen","orcid":"0000-0003-3558-9954","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366317,"name":"Chungyu Chang","orcid":"0000-0001-6127-3086","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":736426,"name":"Ju Huck Lee","orcid":"0000-0001-6103-7593","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":736427,"name":"Manuel Wittchen","orcid":"0000-0002-0174-1551","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":736863,"name":"HyLam Ton-That","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":434456,"name":"Melissa R. Cruz","orcid":"0000-0003-2399-3343","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":434457,"name":"Danielle A. Garsin","orcid":"0000-0002-6551-2600","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":474386,"name":"Asis Das","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":137473,"name":"Andreas Tauch","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366322,"name":"Hung Ton‐That","orcid":"0000-0003-1611-0469","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":736425,"name":"Truc Thanh Luong","orcid":"0000-0001-7355-8388","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":55,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:48:17.816498Z","pmid":"33672886","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":[]}