​Research Interests and Achievements

RNA regulators of gene expression have become a growing focus of scientific attention due to the accumulating evidence that such molecules, widespread in both pro- and eukaryotes, participate in regulation of almost all cellular processes.

Our group focuses on the biochemical and functional analysis of regulatory RNAs including small RNAs and mRNA leaders in E. coli and Salmonella. The group has set many of the foundations for this emerging and exciting field of regulatory RNA elements. In a landmark publication, the group described a plethora of small RNA genes in E. coli (Argaman et al., Current Biology 2001). Later on we reported on the discovery of small RNAs encoded within genetic islands acquired by horizontal transfer in Salmonella (Padalon et al., Nucleic Acids Research 2008). The group described the first example of a pH responsive RNA regulator (Nechooshtan et al., Genes Dev. 2009; Nechooshtan et al., Nucleic Acids Res 2014) and identified the first functional partner of the RNA binding protein Hfq (Argaman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2012). Recently the group has reported on two sRNAs with intriguing toxic phenotypes: IsrK, a prophage sRNA with dual function as small and messenger RNA that modulates bacterial transcription antitermination thus leading to DNA damage and bacterial killing (Hershko-Shalev et al., PLOS Genet 2017); and OxyS, an oxidative stress induced sRNA that by modulating the expression of kilR prophage gene induces cell cycle arrest to allow DNA damage repair (Barshishat et al., EMBO J 2018). Currently we focus on studies of the mechanism of interaction between Hfq and its functional partner RelA protein and on regulatory sRNAs with toxic phenotypes that provide cells with a significant fitness advantage.