Ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules consist of numerous chemically modified nucleosides that are highly
conserved in eukarya, archeae, and bacteria, while others are unique to each domain of life. In bacteria,
hundreds of RNA modification enzymes have been identified and implicated in biological pathways
associated with many cell processes. The glucose-inhibited division (gid) operon encodes genes for two
RNA modification enzymes named GidA and GidB. Studies have shown GidA is essential for the proper
biosynthesis of 5-methylaminomethyl-2-thiouridine (mnm5
s
2
U) of bacterial transfer RNA (tRNA) with
GidB responsible for the methylation of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA). Furthermore, deletion of gidA and
gidB has shown to alter numerous bacterial properties like virulence, stress response, morphology,
growth, antibiotic susceptibility, and others. In this review, we discuss the present knowledge of the RNA
modification enzymes GidA and GidB, and their potential role in the biology and virulence of bacteria.