Identification and functional characterization of sRNAs in Neisseria meningitidis

A riboregulated network, in which small RNAs (sRNAs) regulate the stability and thus translation of transcripts (mRNA), has only recently been discovered in prokaryotes. Yet, during the last 5 years, hundreds of sRNAs have been identified in various bacterial species by using a wide variety of both computational and experimental approaches. The majority of the sRNAs interact with the 5'-untranslated region (UTR) of target mRNAs, thereby influencing the stability of target mRNAs, or by either suppressing or upregulating the ribosome entry to the mRNAs influencing translation. Here, we describe experimental approaches successfully used in our laboratory to identify and functionally characterize sRNAs in vivo in our model micro-organism Neisseria meningitidis.