Abstract
Thanks to the Nobel Foundation for permission to publish this Lecture (Copyright© The Nobel Foundation 2006). We report here the Nobel Lecture delivered by Professor RD Kornberg describing his research in the understanding of transcription in eucaryotes. The amazing work by Professor Kornberg goes from the discovery of the nucleosome to the structural and functional studies of pol II transcription complexes. His research sheds light on fundamental molecular biology problems such as transcription initiation, fidelity of transcription, RNA release at the end of transcription, and many more. This is a beautiful report on how structural and functional studies can be combined to really understand in an accurate and detailed way how proteins combine in huge molecular complexes to regulate one of the most important cellular processes: gene transcription.
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Acknowledgements
The charge for this lecture was to tell the story of the work leading to the Prize. It is also the story of many students and postdoctoral fellows, whose skill, great effort, and willing suspension of disbelief, over a quarter century, transformed a scientific dream into a reality. I could only mention a few by name without interrupting the flow of the story, but the contributions of others were not less important. I pay heartfelt tribute to them, and to all who have shared part of their scientific lives with me (Figure 19), in pursuit not only of the pol II structure, but also of chromatin, transcription biochemistry, and EM methodology. I should add that this is a lecture, not a review, and so is personal rather than referential. The pol II structure is a culmination of research done in many laboratories, and I am deeply indebted to those involved.
Figure 19
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From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 2006, Editor Karl Grandin, (Nobel Foundation), Stockholm, 2007 Copyright© The Nobel Foundation 2006
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Kornberg, R. The molecular basis of eucaryotic transcription. Cell Death Differ 14, 1989–1997 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4402251
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4402251
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