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Transcription pausing: biological significance of thermal fluctuations biased by repetitive genomic sequences

Transcription of DNA by RNA polymerase (RNAP) takes place in a cell environment dominated by thermal fluctuations. How are transcription reactions including initiation, elongation, and termination on genomic DNA so well-controlled during such fluctuations? A recent statistical mechanical approach us...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Imashimizu, Masahiko, Lukatsky, David B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5927657/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29105534
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21541264.2017.1393492
Descripción
Sumario:Transcription of DNA by RNA polymerase (RNAP) takes place in a cell environment dominated by thermal fluctuations. How are transcription reactions including initiation, elongation, and termination on genomic DNA so well-controlled during such fluctuations? A recent statistical mechanical approach using high-throughput sequencing data reveals that repetitive DNA sequence elements embedded into a genomic sequence provide the key mechanism to functionally bias the fluctuations of transcription elongation complexes. In particular, during elongation pausing, such repetitive sequence elements can increase the magnitude of one-dimensional diffusion of the RNAP enzyme on the DNA upstream of the pausing site, generating a large variation in the dwell times of RNAP pausing under the control of these genomic signals.