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Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Single-Molecule Imaging of EWS-FLI1 Condensates Assembling on DNA
Published on: September 8, 2021
Macromolecular crowding has opposite effects on two critical sub-steps of transcription initiation
Pratip Mukherjee1,2, Abhishek Mazumder1
1Structural Biology and Bioinformatics Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, India.
Abstract:
Transcription initiation, the first step in gene expression, has been studied extensively in dilute buffer, a condition which fails to consider the crowded environment in live cells. Recent reports indicate the kinetics of promoter escape is altered in crowded conditions for a consensus bacterial promoter. Here, we use a real-time fluorescence enhancement assay to study the kinetics of unwound bubble formation and promoter escape for three separate promoters. We find that the effect of crowding on transcription initiation is complex, with lower rates of unwound bubble formation, higher rates of promoter escape, and large variations depending on promoter identity. Based on our results, we suggest that altered conditions of crowding inside a live cell can trigger global changes.
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