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Promoter melting by an alternative σ, one base at a time

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 21, pages 350–351 (2014)Cite this article

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Housekeeping σ factors are initiation factors for the bacterial RNA polymerase at most promoters, whereas alternative σs direct focused responses to specific environmental conditions. Structural and functional analysis of an alternative σ complexed with its cognate −10 motif elucidates the mechanism for initiation of strand opening, highlighting two critical properties: why alternative σs, compared to housekeeping σs, recognize so few promoters and how their promoter-recognition strategy was diversified during evolution.

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Figure 1: A schematic view of RNAP holoenzymes.

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Acknowledgements

Work in the authors' laboratories is supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seth A. Darst and Andrey Feklistov are at Rockefeller University, New York, New York, USA.,

    Seth A Darst & Andrey Feklistov

  2. Carol A. Gross is at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, the California Institute of Quantitative Biology and the Department of Cell and Tissue Biology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Carol A Gross

Authors
  1. Seth A Darst
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  2. Andrey Feklistov
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  3. Carol A Gross
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Correspondence to Seth A Darst or Carol A Gross.

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Darst, S., Feklistov, A. & Gross, C. Promoter melting by an alternative σ, one base at a time. Nat Struct Mol Biol 21, 350–351 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2798

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