Jayan Rammohan’s studies of the kinetics and thermodynamics of mycobacterial transcription initiation show that the essential transcription factor CarD from M. tuberculosis both slows bubble collapse and increases the rate of DNA unwinding. As CarD is found at promoters across… Read More »Publication in NAR: CarD stabilizes mycobacterial open complexes via a two-tiered kinetic mechanism.
Optical tweezers were used to track single molecules of two different classes of RNA polymerase as they transcribe DNA into RNA. She shows that RNAP I (which transcribes ribosomal RNA) and RNAP II (which transcribes messenger RNA) both exhibit backtracking… Read More »New Publication in PNAS: Mechanisms of backtrack recovery by RNA Polymerases I and II.
The essential transcription initiation factor TFIIH translocates along double-stranded DNA. The Ssl2 subunit, previously thought to act as a helicase to convert dsDNA into ssDNA actually walks along dsDNA without unwinding. This explains structural results showing that Ssl2 does not… Read More »Publication in PNAS: Double-stranded DNA translocase activity of TFIIH and the mechanism of RNAP Polymerase II Open Complex formation.