Structural basis of exoribonuclease-mediated mRNA transcription termination

Yuan Zeng, Hong-Wei Zhang, Xiao-Xian Wu and Yu Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Yuan Zeng: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hong-Wei Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xiao-Xian Wu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yu Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature, 2024, vol. 628, issue 8009, 887-893

Abstract: Abstract Efficient termination is required for robust gene transcription. Eukaryotic organisms use a conserved exoribonuclease-mediated mechanism to terminate the mRNA transcription by RNA polymerase II (Pol II)1–5. Here we report two cryogenic electron microscopy structures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Pol II pre-termination transcription complexes bound to the 5′-to-3′ exoribonuclease Rat1 and its partner Rai1. Our structures show that Rat1 displaces the elongation factor Spt5 to dock at the Pol II stalk domain. Rat1 shields the RNA exit channel of Pol II, guides the nascent RNA towards its active centre and stacks three nucleotides at the 5′ terminus of the nascent RNA. The structures further show that Rat1 rotates towards Pol II as it shortens RNA. Our results provide the structural mechanism for the Rat1-mediated termination of mRNA transcription by Pol II in yeast and the exoribonuclease-mediated termination of mRNA transcription in other eukaryotes.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07240-3 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:628:y:2024:i:8009:d:10.1038_s41586-024-07240-3

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07240-3

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 ().