The manA RNA motif refers to a conserved RNA

RNA

Ribonucleic acid , or RNA, is one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life....

 structure that was identified by bioinformatics

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...

. Instances of the manA RNA motif were detected in bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

 in the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Photobacterium

Photobacterium

Photobacterium is a genus of gram-negative bacteria in the family Vibrionaceae. Members of the genus are bioluminescent, that is they have the ability to emit light....

and phages that infect certain kinds of cyanobacteria. However, most predicted manA RNA sequences are derived from DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 collected from uncultivated marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 bacteria. Almost all manA RNAs are positioned such that they might be in the 5' untranslated regions of protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

-coding gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

s, and therefore it was hypothesized that manA RNAs function as cis-regulatory element

Cis-regulatory element

A cis-regulatory element or cis-element is a region of DNA or RNA that regulates the expression of genes located on that same molecule of DNA . This term is constructed from the Latin word cis, which means "on the same side as". These cis-regulatory elements are often binding sites for one or...

s. Given the relative complexity of their secondary structure

Secondary structure

In biochemistry and structural biology, secondary structure is the general three-dimensional form of local segments of biopolymers such as proteins and nucleic acids...

, and their hypothesized cis-regulatory role, they might be riboswitch

Riboswitch

In molecular biology, a riboswitch is a part of an mRNA molecule that can directly bind a small target molecule, and whose binding of the target affects the gene's activity. Thus, an mRNA that contains a riboswitch is directly involved in regulating its own activity, in response to the...

es.

The genes thought to be regulated by manA RNAs are most typically those involved in the metabolism

Metabolism

Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...

 of the sugars fructose

Fructose

Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple monosaccharide found in many plants. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion. Fructose was discovered by French chemist Augustin-Pierre Dubrunfaut in 1847...

 and mannose

Mannose

Mannose is a sugar monomer of the aldohexose series of carbohydrates. Mannose is a C-2 epimer of glucose. It is not part of human metabolism, but is a component of microbial cell walls, and is therefore a target of the immune system and also of antibiotics....

, synthesis of nucleotide

Nucleotide

Nucleotides are molecules that, when joined together, make up the structural units of RNA and DNA. In addition, nucleotides participate in cellular signaling , and are incorporated into important cofactors of enzymatic reactions...

s, bacterial photosynthesis

Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...

 and a class of protein chaperones known as ibpA. manA RNAs are also often adjacent to transfer RNA

Transfer RNA

Transfer RNA is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 73 to 93 nucleotides in length, that is used in biology to bridge the three-letter genetic code in messenger RNA with the twenty-letter code of amino acids in proteins. The role of tRNA as an adaptor is best understood by...

s, and are likely transcribed with them. Although these genes are not thought of as typical of phages, it has previously been observed that phages infecting cyanobacteria commonly incorporate such genes.