Control of gene expression: Mediator MED26 shifts an idling polymerase into high gear
Friday, July 8, 2011 - 02:30
in Biology & Nature
Look up "transcription"—the copying of a gene's DNA into RNA intermediaries—in any old molecular biology text book, and it all seems very simple: RNA polymerase II, the enzyme that catalyzes the reaction, assembles at the start site and starts motoring down the strand, cranking out the RNA ribbon used to construct proteins. But researchers now know that RNA polymerase II often stalls on DNA strands where it was once assumed to just barrel down.
