why is ribosomal RNA of use in bacterial classification?

Answer 1

16s rRNA is highly conserved and changes very little over time. This is valuable for bacterial classification because it easily allows for differentiation down to the level of genus. There are other potential markers to use for this (many have been published, see one example in source box), the key feature is that it needs to show some change over time, but not change too rapidly, as conservation of changes is what allows for relationships to be inferred.

If it mutates too fast, then you'd see similar mutations in unrelated bacteria by random chance, and it would foul up your trees nicely.

Now I mention that it works easily down to the genus level because in some instances, recently evolved bacteria haven't accumulated changes in the 16s rRNA sequence, so some times other phenotypic tests are used to speciate them (examples include Y. pestis vs Y. psuedotuberculosis, E. coli vs Shigella). The reverse also happens, for example, Clostridium botulinum were classified as that species due to the ability to produce a botulinum-like toxin. The advent of 16s rRNA sequencing reveals that there are vastly different bacteria lumped into that species, a problem caused by the horizontal transfer of the toxin genes.

Answer 2

RNA serves as the template for translation of genes into proteins, transferring amino acids to the ribosome to form proteins, and also translating the transcript into proteins.

Answer 3

16s rRNA is used to compare a lot of things, because its structure remains very similar in most forms of life, and by studying that strand, relationships can be determined.

For more info, look up a scientist by the name of Carl Woese.

Answer 4

through fact it does no longer substitute in coding from one technology to the subsequent (in comparison to DNA, which suits via Recombination). as a result you need to use it to track differences in each and each technology -