Mechanical Properties of Transcription

Abstract

Recently the physical characterization of a number of biological processes has proven indispensable for a full understanding of natural phenomena. One such example is the mechanical properties of transcription, which have been shown to have significant effects in gene expression. In this letter we introduce a simple description of the basic physical elements of transcription where RNA elongation, RNA polymerase rotation and DNA supercoiling are coupled. The resulting framework describes the relative amount of RNA polymerase rotation and DNA supercoiling that occurs during RNA elongation. Asymptotic behavior is derived and can be used to experimentally extract unknown mechanical parameters of transcription. Incorporation of mechanical limits to RNA polymerase is accomplished yielding an equation of motion for DNA supercoiling and RNA elongation with transcriptional stalling. Important implications for gene expression, chromatin structure and genome organization are discussed.

References in corpus (2)

• A stochastic model of supercoiling-dependent transcription
• Mechanical Bounds to Transcriptional Noise

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Transcription-driven DNA Supercoiling: Non-Equilibrium Dynamics and Action-at-a-distance
• DNA Supercoiling Drives a Transition between Collective Modes of Gene Synthesis
• Theoretical model of transcription based on torsional mechanics of DNA template
• Twin Supercoil Domain couples the dynamics of molecular motors and plectonemes during bacterial DNA transcription and replication