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Updated: Jul 6, 2025

Artificial RNA Polymerase II Elongation Complexes for Dissecting Co-transcriptional RNA Processing Events
Published on: May 13, 2019
RNA polymerase II elongation factors use conserved regulatory mechanisms
1Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Am Fassberg 11, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Abstract:
RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription is regulated by many elongation factors. Among these factors, TFIIF, PAF-RTF1, ELL and Elongin stimulate mRNA chain elongation by Pol II. Cryo-EM structures of Pol II complexes with these elongation factors now reveal some general principles on how elongation factors bind Pol II and how they stimulate transcription. All four elongation factors contact Pol II at domains external 2 and protrusion, whereas TFIIF and ELL additionally bind the Pol II lobe. All factors apparently stabilize cleft-flanking elements, whereas RTF1 and Elongin additionally approach the active site with a latch element and may influence catalysis or translocation. Due to the shared binding sites on Pol II, factor binding is mutually exclusive, and thus it remains to be studied what determines which elongation factors bind at a certain gene and under which condition.
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