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Unraveling the mysteries of transcription

Nature Structural Biology volume 6, pages 497–499 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

The crystal structure of bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase complexed to a DNA promoter is the first high resolution structure of an open promoter complex. The orientation of the bound template and the structure of the polymerase active site suggest a model for transcript initiation.

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Figure 1: A model for the initiation of transcription by T7 RNA polymerase, based on biochemical14 and structural6 evidence.
Figure 2: Structure of T7 RNA polymerase7,8.
Figure 3: Interaction of T7 RNA and DNA polymerases with DNA and nucleotide substrates.

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Acknowledgements

I thank C. Richardson, S. Buratowski, and members of my laboratory for many instructive conversations and for helpful comments on the manuscript. Thanks to G. Cheetham and T. Steitz for contributing Fig. 3. My apologies to the many colleagues whose work could not be cited because of space constraints.

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  1. the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Tom Ellenberger

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  1. Tom Ellenberger
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Correspondence to Tom Ellenberger.

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Ellenberger, T. Unraveling the mysteries of transcription. Nat Struct Mol Biol 6, 497–499 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/9260

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