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Review
. 2000 Mar 15;28(6):1283-98.
doi: 10.1093/nar/28.6.1283.

Survey and summary: transcription by RNA polymerases I and III

M R Paule  1 , R J White
Affiliations
Review

Survey and summary: transcription by RNA polymerases I and III

M R Paule et al. Nucleic Acids Res. .

Abstract

The task of transcribing nuclear genes is shared between three RNA polymerases in eukaryotes: RNA polymerase (pol) I synthesizes the large rRNA, pol II synthesizes mRNA and pol III synthesizes tRNA and 5S rRNA. Although pol II has received most attention, pol I and pol III are together responsible for the bulk of transcriptional activity. This survey will summarise what is known about the process of transcription by pol I and pol III, how it happens and the proteins involved. Attention will be drawn to the similarities between the three nuclear RNA polymerase systems and also to their differences.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Generic organisation of pol I transcription units. (A) The rRNA coding units are separated by intergenic spacers (IGS). (B) The IGS contains a series of terminators (term), enhancers, a spacer promoter (SP), a proximal terminator (PT), the upstream promoter element (UPE) and the promoter core, which includes the rInr. The sites of transcription initiation are indicated by tis and/or the bent arrows.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Organisation of the three general types of promoter used by pol III. The site of transcription initiation is indicated by +1 and the site of termination is indicated by Tn. Also shown are the positions of various promoter elements, including the intermediate element (IE), proximal sequence element (PSE) and distal sequence element (DSE).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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