Every living cell transcribes DNA into RNA. This process begins when an enzyme called RNA polymerase (RNAP) clamps onto DNA. Within a few hundred milliseconds, the DNA double helix unwinds to form a ...

RNA Polymerase (shown in blue) moves across a template strand of DNA (shown in purple) and transcribes it into RNA (shown in red). But DNA damage blocks the RNA polymerase, causing it to stall and ...

One of the first-ever images of the open complex that forms when RNAP encounters DNA and kicks off the process of transcription. Every living cell transcribes DNA into RNA. This process begins when an ...

When the molecular machinery in our cells gets to work transcribing the genetic information encoded in DNA into messenger RNA (mRNA), it pauses shortly after starting. Known as promoter-proximal ...

Molecular biologists have long believed that the beginning of a gene launched the process of transcription—the process by which a segment of DNA is copied into RNA and then RNA helps make the proteins ...

Every living cell must interpret its genetic code - a sequence of chemical letters that governs countless cellular functions. A new study by researchers from the Center for Theoretical Biological ...

New research reveals how the RapA enzyme protects against R-loop cytotoxicity in E. coli. Genetically speaking, it's a bacterium's worst-case scenario: during transcription, newly minted RNA sticks to ...

Mayo Clinic researchers have identified a protein that acts like a traffic controller for DNA, preventing damage during cell ...

Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene regulation. The discovery during the Human Genome Project in the early 2000s that we humans have only ...

The Wilkinson laboratory studies reverse transcriptases and retrotransposons using biochemistry, structural biology, and genome mining.