Elucidation of bacterial translation regulatory networks

Abstract The translational regulatory network of bacteria is governed by diverse interaction between target mRNAs, regulatory RNAs, and cognate proteins. Advances in high-throughput sequencing techniques has helped in understanding the fundamental mechanisms behind translational regulation, including identification of a large number of regulatory small RNAs and antisense RNAs, and genome-wide binding locations of RNA-binding proteins. In this review, different mechanisms of translational regulation are described in the perspective of methods that allow the detection and generation of translational regulatory networks in a genome-wide manner. Furthermore, genome-wide data on translational regulation is the key to fill the gap between transcription and proteins and more importantly, develop more accurate in silico regulatory and metabolic network models.