ArticleMolecular systems biology2015
Defining a minimal cell: essentiality of small ORFs and ncRNAs in a genome-reduced bacterium.
Article in Molecular systems biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 86 papers.
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Who cites it
86 citing papers in PubMed.
- Living Microbial Drugs.Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Review
- ConNIS and labeling instability: New statistical methods for improving the detection of essential genes in TraDIS libraries.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Structural basis for transcriptional regulation by the cell division regulator MraZ in Mycoplasma genitalium.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Genomic Characterization of aVeterinary sciences · 2026Article
- Quantitative essentiality in a reduced genome: a functional, regulatory and structural fitness map.Molecular systems biology · 2025Article
- Systematic analysis of structural disorder in the minimal proteome ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Article
- Heterologous protein exposure and secretion optimization in Mycoplasma pneumoniae.Microbial cell factories · 2024Article
- Minimisation of metabolic networks defines a new functional class of genes.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Microenzymes: Is There Anybody Out There?The protein journal · 2024Review
- A survey of experimental and computational identification of small proteins.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2024Review
- ProTInSeq: transposon insertion tracking by ultra-deep DNA sequencing to identify translated large and small ORFs.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Cryo-electron tomography reveals the binding and release states of the major adhesion complex from Mycoplasma genitalium.PLoS pathogens · 2023Article
- Exposing the small protein load of bacterial life.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2023Review
- Engineered live bacteria suppress Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in mouse lung and dissolve endotracheal-tube biofilms.Nature biotechnology · 2023Article
- Article
- Essential protein P116 extracts cholesterol and other indispensable lipids for Mycoplasmas.Nature structural & molecular biology · 2023Article
- Gene editing tools for mycoplasmas: references and future directions for efficient genome manipulation.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Review
- SURE editing: combining oligo-recombineering and programmable insertion/deletion of selection markers to efficiently edit the Mycoplasma pneumoniae genome.Nucleic acids research · 2022Article
- Genome Editing of Veterinary Relevant Mycoplasmas Using a CRISPR-Cas Base Editor System.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Article
26 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Identifying all essential genomic components is critical for the assembly of minimal artificial life. In the genome-reduced bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae, we found that small ORFs (smORFs; < 100 residues), accounting for 10% of all ORFs, are the most frequently essential genomic components (53%), followed by conventional ORFs (49%). Essentiality of smORFs may be explained by their function as members of protein and/or DNA/RNA complexes. In larger proteins, essentiality applied to individual domains and not entire proteins, a notion we could confirm by expression of truncated domains. The fraction of essential non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) non-overlapping with essential genes is 5% higher than of non-transcribed regions (0.9%), pointing to the important functions of the former. We found that the minimal essential genome is comprised of 33% (269,410 bp) of the M. pneumoniae genome. Our data highlight an unexpected hidden layer of smORFs with essential functions, as well as non-coding regions, thus changing the focus when aiming to define the minimal essential genome.
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