Access

News and Views

Nature Cell Biology 7, 1054–1055 (1 November 2005) | doi:10.1038/ncb1105-1054

Unleash the messenger

Asis K. Das & Gordon G. Carmichael

Cells must often reprogramme gene expression extremely rapidly in response to stress. A well-known paradigm for this method of gene control is the heat-shock response in eukaryotes, where RNA polymerase is poised at specific promoters to start making heat-shock protein mRNAs at a moment's notice.