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Science 31 March 2000:
Vol. 287. no. 5462, pp. 2497 - 2500
DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5462.2497
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Reports

Single-Molecule Study of Transcriptional Pausing and Arrest by E. coli RNA Polymerase

R. John Davenport, 1* Gijs J. L. Wuite, 2* Robert Landick, 3 Carlos Bustamante 124dagger

Using an optical-trap/flow-control video microscopy technique, we followed transcription by single molecules of Escherichia coli RNA polymerase in real time over long template distances. These studies reveal that RNA polymerase molecules possess different intrinsic transcription rates and different propensities to pause and stop. The data also show that reversible pausing is a kinetic intermediate between normal elongation and the arrested state. The conformational metastability of RNA polymerase revealed by this single-molecule study of transcription has direct implications for the mechanisms of gene regulation in both bacteria and eukaryotes.

1 Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and
2 Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
3 Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
4 Physical Biosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
*   These authors contributed equally to this work.

dagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: carlos{at}alice.berkeley.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)