Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,
I am preparing a presentation on "the roles of small RNA in the adaptive responses of bacteria," and I have to deal with an example, after doing research I thought of RNAIII of S.aureus but it is a response to quorum sensing and it's not what I want.

I wanted to know if there are Small RNA that have this role (in the adaptive responses, virulence) in plasmids (xenobiotics if possible).
Thank you.

Hi shetler!
I'm so glad that you're doing research about bacteria and RNA! Molecular biology is one of my favorite fields of science .
I think what you're looking for is "regulatory" RNA, and I've found a paper that you can access for examples of specific strains that they studied the RNA from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19239884. Just click on the "Free" icon on the top right-hand side.

In addition, I found this very interesting article about LARGE RNA, and I thought you might be interested. It's very short, but gives quite an exciting summary of the discovery.
http://www.physorg.com/news178987799.html

Good luck!
Ktsshao