Life’s instructions are written in DNA, but it is the enzyme RNA polymerase II (Pol II) that reads the script, transcribing RNA in eukaryotic cells and eventually giving rise to proteins. Scientists ...

LMU scientists have shown that a fundamental process of life works differently than previously assumed. The basic process of life, known as transcription, is the process by which the genetic ...

A bacterial protein helps to stop transcription -- the process of making RNA copies of DNA to carry out the functions of the cell -- by causing the cellular machinery that transcribes the DNA to pause ...

As imaging tools continue to get more sophisticated, researchers have been able to actually watch biological processes as they are happening in live cells. Scientists have now visualized loops of DNA ...

With a new study in the journal Cell, researchers at Stanford University and Stockholm University have contributed to increased knowledge about gene regulation in human cells. How genes are turned on ...

Researchers have discovered that in thale cresses histone H3 lysine-9 (H3K9) methylation, conventionally thought to be a mark of turning off gene transcription, can also turn on gene expression via ...

When the molecular machinery in our cells gets to work transcribing the genetic information encoded in DNA into messenger RNA (mRNA), it pauses shortly after starting. Known as promoter-proximal ...

Every living cell transcribes DNA into RNA. This process begins when an enzyme called RNA polymerase (RNAP) clamps onto DNA. Within a few hundred milliseconds, the DNA double helix unwinds to form a ...