Crosstalk of promoter and terminator during RNA polymerase II transcription cycle

Abstract

The transcription cycle of RNAPII is comprised of three consecutive steps; initiation, elongation and termination. It has been assumed that the initiation and termination steps occur in spatial isolation, essentially as independent events. A growing body of evidence, however, has challenged this dogma. First, factors involved in initiation and termination exhibit both a genetic and a physical interaction during transcription. Second, the initiation and termination factors have been found to occupy both ends of a transcribing gene. Third, physical interaction of initiation and termination factors occupying distal ends of a gene sometime results in the entire terminator region of a genes looping back and contact its cognate promoter, thereby forming a looped gene architecture during transcription. A logical interpretation of these findings is that the initiation and termination steps of transcription do not occur in isolation. There is extensive communication of factors occupying promoter and terminator ends of a gene during transcription cycle. This review entails a discussion of the promoter-terminator crosstalk and its implication in the context of transcription.

Keywords: Gene looping; Promoter-terminator interaction; RNA polymerase II; Transcription.