PurD RNA motif

The purD RNA motif is a conserved RNA structure found in epsilonproteobacteria, such as the genera "Helicobacter" and "Campylobacter". [cite journal |author=Weinberg Z, Barrick JE, Yao Z, "et al" |title=Identification of 22 candidate structured RNAs in bacteria using the CMfinder comparative genomics pipeline |journal=Nucleic Acids Res. |volume=35 |issue=14 |pages=4809–19 |year=2007 |pmid=17621584 |pmc=1950547 |doi=10.1093/nar/gkm487 |url=] The RNA is consistently found in the apparent 5' UTR of "purD" genes. "purD" genes encode the enzyme Phosphoribosylamine-glycine ligase, which catalyzes an early step in de novo purine synthesis. Given this gene association, it is likely that the RNA is a cis-regulatory element. It was hypothesized that the RNA is a riboswitch, although experiments failed to show binding to the subset of purine derivatives that were tested.

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