Visualization of transcription initiation at single-molecule resolution
Wednesday, July 26, 2017 - 08:02
in Biology & Nature
A novel approach developed at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) has allowed scientists in Dirk Schübeler's group to dissect and quantify the individual steps of transcription initiation. Unexpectedly, they observed that RNA polymerases frequently dissociate from the DNA template, rather than pause, before transcription continues. They thus gained new mechanistic insights into gene regulation.