Postinitiation transcriptional control in Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila hsp70 genes have an RNA polymerase II molecule paused at their 5' ends in uninduced cells. In this study we have shown that this pausing also occurs on other heat shock and constitutively expressed genes. We propose that a rate-limiting step in early elongation occurs in many Drosophila genes and may be a target for transcriptional regulation.