Abstract
RNA degradation in bacteria, once thought to be a pathway whose only function was to scavenge nucleotides for the re-synthesis of RNA’s, is now known to be a complex, carefully regulated pathway that involves a number of key enzymes acting in concert. In Escherichia coli some of those enzymes are organized into a supramolecular complex that participates in the degradation of cellular RNA’s and it is now clear that RNA degradation represents an important intracellular mechanism for the regulation of gene expression in bacteria. In what follows, I will briefly review what is known about RNA degradation in E. coli and Bacillus subtilis and then discuss the relationships between RNA degradation, gene expression and antibiotic synthesis in the genus Streptomyces.
