RNA polymerase I structure and transcription regulation

Christoph Engel, Sarah Sainsbury, Alan C. Cheung, Dirk Kostrewa and Patrick Cramer ()
Additional contact information
Christoph Engel: Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Feodor-Lynen-Str. 25, 81377 Munich, Germany
Sarah Sainsbury: Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Feodor-Lynen-Str. 25, 81377 Munich, Germany
Alan C. Cheung: Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Feodor-Lynen-Str. 25, 81377 Munich, Germany
Dirk Kostrewa: Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Feodor-Lynen-Str. 25, 81377 Munich, Germany
Patrick Cramer: Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Feodor-Lynen-Str. 25, 81377 Munich, Germany

Nature, 2013, vol. 502, issue 7473, 650-655

Abstract: Abstract Transcription of ribosomal RNA by RNA polymerase (Pol) I initiates ribosome biogenesis and regulates eukaryotic cell growth. The crystal structure of Pol I from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae at 2.8 Å resolution reveals all 14 subunits of the 590-kilodalton enzyme, and shows differences to Pol II. An ‘expander’ element occupies the DNA template site and stabilizes an expanded active centre cleft with an unwound bridge helix. A ‘connector’ element invades the cleft of an adjacent polymerase and stabilizes an inactive polymerase dimer. The connector and expander must detach during Pol I activation to enable transcription initiation and cleft contraction by convergent movement of the polymerase ‘core’ and ‘shelf’ modules. Conversion between an inactive expanded and an active contracted polymerase state may generally underlie transcription. Regulatory factors can modulate the core–shelf interface that includes a ‘composite’ active site for RNA chain initiation, elongation, proofreading and termination.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12712 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:502:y:2013:i:7473:d:10.1038_nature12712

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature12712

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().