Misincorporation by RNA polymerase is a major source of transcription pausing in vivo.

ABSTRACT: The transcription error rate estimated from mistakes in end product RNAs is 10−3–10−5. We analyzed the fidelity of nascent RNAs from all actively transcribing elongation complexes (ECs) in Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae and found that 1–3% of all ECs in wild-type cells, and 5–7% of all ECs in cells lacking proofreading factors are, in fact, misincorporated complexes. With the exception of a number of sequence-dependent hotspots, most misincorporations are distributed relatively randomly. Misincorporation at hotspots does not appear to be stimulated by pausing. Since misincorporation leads to a strong pause of transcription due to backtracking, our findings indicate that misincorporation could be a major source of transcriptional pausing and lead to conflicts with other RNA p

SUBMITTER: James K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5388426 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature