ole rnas are transcribed as rna, and experiments in bacillus halodurans show that it is transcribed in a mrna with 10 other genes. the adjacent genes are conserved in the vicinity of ole rna in most species containing it, but in desulfitobacterium hafniense they are located elsewhere on the chromosome. ole rnas are processed from the larger transcript into a shorter rna that roughly corresponds to the conserved, ~610-nucleotide structure. genes encoding a protein class of unknown function are typically located immediately downstream of ole rnas, and the presence of this protein class is correlated in species with the presence of ole rna. this correlation suggests a possible functional association between the rna and the protein.