Functional specialization of transcription elongation factors

Functional specialization of transcription elongation factors.

Elongation factors NusG and RfaH evolved from a common ancestor and utilize the same binding site on RNA polymerase (RNAP) to modulate transcription. However, although NusG associates with RNAP transcribing most Escherichia coli genes, RfaH regulates just a few operons containing ops, a DNA sequence that mediates RfaH recruitment. Here, we describe the mechanism by which this specificity is mai...

Novel domains and orthologues of eukaryotic transcription elongation factors.

The passage of RNA polymerase II across eukaryotic genes is impeded by the nucleosome, an octamer of histones H2A, H2B, H3 and H4 dimers. More than a dozen factors in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are known to facilitate transcription elongation through chromatin. In order to better understand the evolution and function of these factors, their sequences have been compared with known protei...

Transcription elongation

Transcription Elongation Factor GreA Has Functional Chaperone Activity

BACKGROUND Bacterial GreA is an indispensable factor in the RNA polymerase elongation complex. It plays multiple roles in transcriptional elongation, and may be implicated in resistance to various stresses. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In this study, we show that Escherichia coli GreA inhibits aggregation of several substrate proteins under heat shock condition. GreA can also effectively pr...

Functional interplay between PPM1G and the transcription elongation machinery.

Transcription elongation is a critical regulatory step in the gene expression cycle. One key regulator of the switch between transcription initiation and elongation is the P-TEFb kinase, which phosphorylates RNA polymerase II (Pol II) and several negative elongation factors to relieve the elongation block at paused promoters to facilitate productive elongation. Here, we highlight recent finding...