Bacterial RNase III cleaves long dsRNA at preferred sites

Members of the ribonuclease (RNase) III family regulate gene expression by processing double-stranded (ds) RNA. The founding member of the family, Escherichia coli (Ec) RNase III, is the most comprehensively studied and its E38A mutant (EcE38A) is an economical reagent for the preparation of small interfering (si) RNA cocktails. Previously, it was shown that EcRNase III recognizes dsRNA with little specificity and that EcE38A mainly produces 23-nucleotide (nt) siRNAs. To characterize substrate specificity and product size, we performed in vitro cleavage of dsRNAs by bacterial RNase IIIs and delineated the cleavage products by next generation sequencing. Surprisingly, we found that RNase III cleaves dsRNA at preferred sites and most siRNAs produced by EcE38A are 22 nt long. We eliminated the sequence specificity of EcE38A through the introduction of additional mutations, thereby creating a reagent that is ideally suited for producing heterogeneous siRNA cocktails to be used in gene silencing studies. In vitro cleavages of FF-Luc and MBP dsRNAs by variious bacterial Rnases III and their mutants were deep sequened and analyzed to investigate the cleavage preference of those Rnase III enzymes