Antisense RNA-mediated photosynthetic response in Synechocystis sp. PCC6803

Antisense RNAs (asRNAs) have diverse functions across three superkingdoms of life. However, their physiological roles for photosynthesis, the most efficient conversion system of solar energy and carbon dioxide into desirable biofuel, are elusive. To understand asRNA-mediated photosynthetic response, we systematically identified non-coding asRNAs and analyzed their differential regulation upon high light and/or low temperature. We found that large fractions of antisense regions are pervasively transcribed and differentially induced upon the change of light and/or temperature. Particularly, photosynthesis and ribosome related genes are mostly regulated by asRNA. Futhermore, we found that 93 long non-coding asRNAs spanning more than half of the cognate open reading frames (ORFs), unexpectedly. Intriguingly, many of them are associated with photosynthetic genes and they have positive role to the expression level of their cognate ORFs. Thus, our systematic transcriptome analysis of photosynthetic response indicates that asRNAs may finetune transcriptional response to enable efficient photosynthetic energy conversion. Overall design: Directional RNA-seq (ScriptSeqTM) of high light stress and/or low temperature stress were generated in duplicates by using Illumina MiSeq