Occurrence in Bacillus licheniformis of two species of 5-S RNA with multiple differences in primary structure.

Bacillus licheniformis was found to contain two species of 5-S RNA. One of these, the primary structure of which has been published previously [H. A. Raué, T.J. Stoof and R.J. Planta (1975) Eur. J. Biochem. 59, 35--42] accounts for 80--90% of the total cellular amount of 5-S RNA. The other one, comprising 10--20% of the total amount, differs in primary structure from the major species at eight positions. All base changes are either purine leads to purine or pyrimidine leads to pyrimidine substitutions. Half of the changes are located within the 5'-terminal part (15 nucleotides) of the molecule, the other half in the 3'-terminal region (22 nucleotides). At least one of the base changes is in a region which in B. subtilis has been implicated in processing of precursor 5-S RNA. The data are consistent with the existence of a single 5-S RNA cistron with a primary structure different from that of all other 5-S RNA cistrons in B. licheniformis.