Recent advances in mycobacterial transcription: insights beyond the general pathway

The conventional idea of prokaryotic transcription represents a collection of pathways assembled from disparate studies across diverse bacterial species. This cumulative approach, though reveals core-conserved mechanisms, likely excludes the transcriptional pathways unique to an organism. The understanding of mycobacterial transcription suffers from such generalizations as its extreme GC bias, complex RNA polymerase (RNAP), abundance of short transcripts predominating its transcriptome, extensive σ factor utilization, and a constant battle against host stress implicates a distinct transcriptional landscape. This review highlights specific insights into mycobacterial RNAP architecture, promoter recognition, and elongation dynamics, against the general comprehensive narration of bacterial transcription.