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Promoters dictate termination mode

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 18, page 704 (2017)Cite this article

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In the allosteric model of termination, the polyadenylation (polyA) signal and/or termination signals downstream of the polyA signal ultimately lead to transcription elongation complex (TEC) disassembly. In the kinetic or 'torpedo' model, after cleavage of the pre-mRNA from the TEC, the rest of the nascent transcript that has been synthesized by the TEC is degraded by 5′–3′ exoribonuclease 2 (XRN2; Rat1 in yeast); the exoribonuclease eventually catches up with the TEC and displaces it from the DNA template. Here, the researchers compared the transcriptome of wild-type nematodes to that of nematodes in which XRN-2 was inactivated by RNA interference or conditional mutations. In the absence of XRN-2, transcription readthrough into downstream regions (up to 50 kb) was only detected for a subset of genes, which the authors termed XRN-2-dependent for termination (XDT) genes. Interestingly, the dependence on XRN-2 for termination was not caused by the selective recruitment of XRN-2 to XDT genes, as XRN-2 bound to both XDT and non-XDT genes at transcription end sites in wild-type nematodes.

Surprisingly, ... the promoter determines whether transcription termination requires XRN-2

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References

  1. Miki, T.S., Carl, S.H. and Grosshans, H. Two distinct transcription termination modes dictated by promoters. Genes Dev. http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gad.301093.117 (2017)

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  1. Grant Otto
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Otto, G. Promoters dictate termination mode. Nat Rev Genet 18, 704 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg.2017.93

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