The expression of LytM is down-regulated by RNAIII in Staphylococcus aureus.

LytM is one kind of autolysin expressed in Staphylococcus aureus. It can hydrolyze peptide bond of pentaglycine, which is the component of cell wall. Until now, the regulation on the expression of LytM is still unclear. Here, we found that the level of LytM in the RNAIII mutant was increased. RNAIII is an important small regulatory RNA in S. aureus. Our further investigation revealed that RNAIII can interact with the 5'UTR of lytM mRNA and block the ribosome binding sites [RBS]. So our results identified that LytM was the new target of RNAIII.