Genomic analysis of RNA-Seq and sRNA-Seq data identifies potential regulatory sRNAs and their functional roles in Staphylococcus aureus.

sRNAs are important post-transcriptional regulators in bacteria. The current study exploits potential of next-generation technology with computational analyses to develop a whole-genome sRNA-gene network for drug-resistant S. aureus by subjecting public expression-profiles to a novel analysis pipeline. Clustering and examination of the resultant global-interactome indicated a coordinated-regulation of numerous processes by various sRNAs with 9 sRNAs and 10 genes as potential hubs. 10 major sRNA-modules were annotated with various functions, among which a major module including of Rsa sRNAs was predicted to be a central regulatory unit. In addition, sRNA95, a hub molecule associated with this unit was predicted to be a vulnerable target. Finally, novel associations between transcriptional-regulators and sRNAs have been mined resulting in some insights into the association between RNAIII and RsaA. To our knowledge, this is the first study in S. aureus throwing insights into global sRNA-gene interactions and identify potential sRNAs to explore sRNA-based applications for therapeutics.