Transcription articles from across Nature Portfolio

In this issue of Nature Metabolism, the research team of Mitchell Lazar reveals unexpected consequences of double loss of the coregulators NCOR1 and NCOR2 (NCOR1/2) in hepatocytes of adult mice, which affects chromatin functioning and glucocorticoid receptor (GR)-mediated gene transcription.

Eukaryotic transcriptional machinery often shows local enrichment in dynamic clusters at sites of high expression. A study of zebrafish embryos shows that such clusters can fine-tune the timing of zygotic genome activation by sequestering a component required for productive transcription, thus limiting its availability to other genes.

The authors investigate how the transcription machinery selects the correct direction to produce coding transcripts. Their results propose a universal mechanism by which Integrator licenses bidirectional transcription to determine the direction of eukaryotic pre-mRNA transcription.

Said et al. used cryoEM, biochemistry and bioinformatics to uncover how the Sm-like protein Rof regulates transcription termination. Rof binds termination factor ρ, inhibiting ρ ring closure and its association with RNA or transcription complexes.

Hauck et al. show that during fasting, nuclear receptor corepressors 1 and 2 act together to activate the transcription of target genes, which is critical for the physiological response to fasting in mice.

In this issue of Nature Metabolism, the research team of Mitchell Lazar reveals unexpected consequences of double loss of the coregulators NCOR1 and NCOR2 (NCOR1/2) in hepatocytes of adult mice, which affects chromatin functioning and glucocorticoid receptor (GR)-mediated gene transcription.

Eukaryotic transcriptional machinery often shows local enrichment in dynamic clusters at sites of high expression. A study of zebrafish embryos shows that such clusters can fine-tune the timing of zygotic genome activation by sequestering a component required for productive transcription, thus limiting its availability to other genes.

Imaging of fluorescently labelled nascent RNA in live cells enabled real-time observation of transcription of an endogenous gene.

Carl G. de Boer highlights a recent paper by Lim et al. on the importance low-affinity transcription factor-binding sites for determining organismal phenotypes.

A recent study visualizes how enhancer–transcriptional condensate–gene interactions augment gene expression.