Differences in transcription initiation directionality underlie distinctions between plants and animals in chromatin modification patterns at genes and cis-regulatory elements.

ABSTRACT: Transcriptional initiation is among the first regulated steps controlling eukaryotic gene expression. High-throughput profiling of fungal and animal genomes has revealed that RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) often initiates transcription in both directions at the promoter transcription start site (TSS), but generally only elongates productively into the gene body. Additionally, Pol II can initiate transcription in both directions at cis-regulatory elements (CREs) such as enhancers. These bidirectional Pol II initiation events can be observed directly with methods that capture nascent transcripts, and they are also revealed indirectly by the presence of transcription-associated histone modifications on both sides of the TSS or CRE. Previous studies have shown that nascent RNAs and transcription-a

SUBMITTER: Silver BD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10635121 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature